New York Times (May 8, 2012)
For Blackburn Rovers Fans, an ‘Aimlessly Stumbling’ Chicken Sums it Up
By HEATHER TIMMONS
Andrew Yates/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesA chicken is released
onto the pitch by Blackburn fans in protest of Venky’s ownership of the
club during the English Premier League football match between Blackburn
Rovers and Wigan Athletic at Ewood Park in Blackburn, England on May 7,
2012.
When the Indian chicken farming giant Venky’s, a subsidiary of Pune’s
V.H. Group, purchased the Blackburn Rovers in late 2010, Venky’s
management promised big things for the English Premier League club.
“We see real sustainable growth for the Club moving forward, both
within the U.K. and also internationally and we intend to exploit our
in-depth knowledge of the Indian market in particular, and beyond that,
the whole of Asia,” Balaji Rao, Venky’s director, said while announcing
the deal. “Blackburn Rovers fans will be delighted to add to the family
a huge Indian and Asian fan base,” he said.
Blackburn Rovers fans, though, are anything but delighted.
Last night, just minutes into a match, one sent a live chicken onto the
field wrapped in a Blackburn Rovers shirt in response team’s dismal
performance since Venky’s took over. The Rovers lost 1-0, knocking the
team out of the Premier League, which it won in 1995.
“Rarely has the gulf between fans and club felt quite so wide,” the
Lancashire Telegraph wrote in an editorial about the match, which was
headlined “The aimlessly stumbling chicken that said it all about the
state of Blackburn Rovers.”
Before the match, the paper noted, a plane with a banner that read “In
Venky’s We Trust,” sponsored by a rival team circled overhead. During
the match, fans sang rounds of “Stand Up, if you hate Venky’s,” and one
fan ran onto the field and threw his season ticket in the direction of
the team’s managers.
“Blackburn, founder members of the Football League, former champions of
the Premier League, have been left bereft by poor management on and off
the pitch,” a columnist wrote in The Telegraph. “The legacy of the
late, great Jack Walker has been shamefully squandered,” he wrote,
referring to the industrialist whose funds built the club. “The Premier
League needs to take a long, hard look at how the Venky’s came to buy
Rovers.”
A fan added in the comments: “The real blame lies entirely with those
abject Indian chicken farmers, the Venkys, and those members of the FA
who deemed these idiots sufficiently competent to own a team in English
football. The FA needs to investigate how these charlatans were ever
allowed to purchase a football team, to ensure that this situation
never happens again.”
Fans and sports commentators have been questioning the Venky’s judgment
for months.
After a string of losses edged Blackburn down to the bottom of the
Premier League standings last fall, the team embarked on a tour of
India, a move greeted incredulously by many. “Blackburn is in India:
The Question is: Why?,” Graham Ruthven wrote for The New York Times’
soccer blog in October. “A trip midway through the season — and at such
a crucial time in Blackburn’s case — indicates a severe lack of
sporting, and even commercial, understanding from the club’s owners,”
he wrote.
Venky’s management did not attend Monday’s match, local newspapers
reported. The company did not immediately respond to calls to its Pune
headquarters for comment.
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