Anyone who has witnessed the outpouring of sentimental tosh on Blackburn Rovers forums over the past few days would think John Williams had cured aids or something.
Williams resigned last week citing that it was time for him to move on with the club having a new way of doing things.
It was obvious that Williams resented the sacking of former manager Sam Allardyce. Judging by the recent comments from Steve Kean it seems there was clear breakdown in their relationship.
Williams and Allardyce were obviously very close. Indeed Williams was close to most of his managers. Maybe not so much Paul Ince who if you blinked you might have missed his spell in charge. However Williams still had to be pressured into sacking him as some rumours suggested by of all people the previous owners.
Ah yes the adored Walkers who due to their utter lack of interest in the club gave Williams almost total control over day to day running of the club.
Lets start by looking at the managers Saint John appointed.
He did not as some people claim appoint Graeme Souness. Due to Jack Walker being seriously ill Williams did most of the negotiating with Souness however there is absolutely no way Jack did not have final say in that appointment. By the way there is and only ever will be one JW.
He did appoint Hughes. He was hailed as a genius for this despite Hughes topping local polls for the position. Hughes is a manager who operates better on smaller budgets (compare the level of thought into his transfers at Rovers and those at Man City when he was like a kid in a candy store) and many would state he was highly successful. Personally I bitterly resented him for linking himself to the Man Utd job at every opportunity. If you know how much Jack Walker hated that club you might begin to understand and I hate them too. Of course the rovers fans who not so many years earlier chanted “we only hate Man United” and probably despised Hughes in the 90′s conveniently forgot this.
Then despite being hailed as a perfect genius who never made a mistake he appointed Paul Ince. So overall that would mean he got 2 out of 3 right when you get to his next appointment Allardyce. Wouldn’t look so impressive if it was 3 out of 5 would it? Williams turned down the likes of Henk Ten Cate despite his fine work at Barcelona and Chelsea in preference to Ince. Other wanted Michael Laudrup (who was sacked when he subsequently took a job in Russia) so he may have gone the same way of Ince. Apparently Laudrup wanted a clause that would allow him to leave for a major La Liga club. Apparently this was declined despite the previous manager Hughes linking himself to Man United as often as he liked.
If there was any clear fans preference in summer 2008 it was Alan Shearer who turned the offer down. He probably would have worked out as badly as Ince. Following that either Slaven Bilic or Michael Laudrup were next in most fans wishlist. I didn’t particularly mind either though I wanted the aforementioned Ten Cate for the role and he probably came up behind Bilic and Laudrup. In the end Williams (and I’m sure the board had a vote while the owners probably couldn’t have cared less) chose Ince who was probably somewhere in the middle. At the bottom of the list were Steve McClaren and GASP…Sam Allardyce.
Allardyce was eventually appointed of course with Williams conveniently hinting he would have appointed him months earlier had it not been for a negative fan reaction. Apparently Allardyce was incompetent and would have led Rovers to relegation. This despite him being a proven competent manager who could operate on minimal budgets (but like Hughes not really so adept at handling bigger budgets) but was considered to prefer a very unappealing style of football.
So when Allardyce (as I expected) proved to be a secure appointment some fans conveniently revised their earlier opinions. They would argue they are allowed to change their minds while I would argue they are 2 faced. All along however I felt he was a transitional appointment until the club got decent owners. Finally Venkys liberated the club on 19th November 2010 to scenes of apathy and general ingratitude from many people.
I thought Venkys would replace Allardyce at the end of the season. I was ok with this but following the absymal defeat at Old Trafford I changed my mind. Honestly i would have sacked Mourinho for that performance if there’s ever been a display that defines “unforgivable” that it is.
Allardyce was sacked a few weeks later having initially planned to visit Old Trafford that evening as a guest of Alex Ferguson. I can’t say I was happy about a Rovers manager being friends with him though I guess you can’t ban friendship. He was quite happy to go of course despite his team (always referred to as “they” never “we”) having been humiliated there just weeks earlier. Once sacked his personal pride was damaged and he cancelled his plans to attend the Man United game against Arsenal that evening. Says it all about Allardyce really.
Then Steve Kean was appointed. Having been accused of stabbing Sam Allardyce in the back he is now being accused of being an integral force in getting Williams to resign. He’s also been called arrogant despite in my view being far less than any of the past 4 managers especially Hughes.
Kean has breathed nothing but positivity into Blackburn Rovers as far as I’m concerned. However as I stated Williams and Allardyce were close. Kean stated that his relationship with Williams was strained compared to how it had been when he was just the first team coach. It seems Williams resented the firing of Allardyce because a mutual friendship had been built up with him.
Business is business. If you have to fire your own grandmother for the betterment of the club it is the right thing to do in my eyes.
Williams also possibly resented his role being reduced. Considering Venkys unlike the previous owners have shown an actual interest in the club this was always going to be the case.
There have been rumours too that personal family issues had made his decision to leave far easier.
Many state the irony that Williams had decided to sell to Venkys in the first place. He hadn’t. Rothschild did a lot of the work and the Walkers ultimately chose to sell to Venkys. The one time they do something helpful for the club some people about the decision. Shame they didn’t care about all the misery they inflicted.
Williams stated in 1998 that we “are already a big club and we are going to get bigger.” He still referred to Rovers as a big club (quite rightly) but constantly used the phrase “punching above our weight.” He did admit some fans were probably tired of hearing this and in my case he was right. Being starved to death by bad owners is not punching above your weight. I’m not the only fan who got sick of this. One of the few people who chose not to partake in the Williams love affair even said “good riddance” on the Lancashire Telegraph comments section due to being sick of hearing this and the general regional mentality. I wouldn’t quite go so far as saying “good riddance” but I could understand that fans thinking to some extent. Only surprise is he wasn’t accused of being me.
The club had a regional mentality under his reign after Jack Walker died. The last sponsorship deal was with a local company Crown Paints. They did at one time sponsor Liverpool when they were champions but as anyone who isn’t living in a cave for the past 20+ years can tell so much has changed since then. Crown Paints were never big enough and despite recent claims they have decided to end their sponsorship at the end of the season I believe Venkys have kindly allowed them to “save face.” There are already rumours of much bigger international sponsorship next season. Something that should have been accomplished by Williams if not for the “small town mentality” that has held the club down in the past several years.
So many people crediting him for his “genius” financial management. First of all he couldn’t have overspent if he wanted to. The Walkers wouldn’t have allowed even the slightest ambition never mind overspending. Secondly it was the managers who selected the players to bring in. What did that have to do with Saint Williams?
Oh but what about his “excellent cost effective initiatives” as some people would describe. Basically he reduced prices and more people attended therefore making up for the shortfall had the prices remained higher! What absolute rocket science!!! Who would have thought if prices were reduced more people would attend!!!
He was open and accessible to the fans. Of course considering the owners never spoke to the fans (other than a couple of exceptionally rare occasions) you would hope someone would try to make up for it. He had a gentlemanly image and would invite fans into his office for a cup of tea and a chat.
I myself spoke to him back in 2007 after I had been critical of him (as well as the owners) for quite some time. This was when there was no evidence of the club being up for sale. I wasn’t happy with claims from people including Williams that the club would be interested if new owners came along. I wanted to see some clear decisive action towards finding new buyers. Of course many fans rebuttal to my complains was that nobody would ever want to buy Rovers. You can’t blame me for shoving those words back down those fans throats. If that makes me seem arrogant so be it anyone would do the same after the irritation I endured.
I’m not claiming for a moment I sped up the process but just a couple of days after our meeting it was announced that Rothschild had been appointed. Williams had hinted at this in the meeting so I wasn’t surprised by the news.
I did leave the meeting with a better opinion of Williams but I didn’t proclaim him as a saint. Most of the 2006 official site forum posts are gone now (or were sent via email to supporters site brfcs and were posted by their admins) but at one time I was almost as critical of Williams as the Walkers. As I said part of this was because there was no evidence until Rothschild were appointed that there was a decent effort to sell the club. I believe my forum posts have been somewhat toned down since 2007 (some would find this laughable but virtually all of my 05/06 posts were written in pure rage.
I stopped my criticism of Williams mostly though I made it clear on numerous occasions that I felt the club had a parochial, regional, marketing approach. Before Rothschild were appointed I felt Williams was letting Jack Walker down as the owners starved the club while making no clear effort to sell. I still feel that by not standing up the Walkers everyone at Blackburn Rovers (whether that be staff or fans) let Jack Walker down.
However just because he let fans into his office for a cup of tea (I was offered one at our meeting but I’m not a fan of tea so declined) and reduced prices should not see him proclaimed as a saint. Even more laughable was him being described as a legend. The Lancashire Telegraph might as well have been renamed John Williams shrine the day his resignation was confirmed. One fans on the forums even suggested naming a stand after him! For what? I suggested that the Lancashire Telegraph had gone totally overboard in the level of worshiping and suggested he should be given the back page. The response was that they thought he “deserved” more than just that. The real story however as far as I’m concerned is who the new chairman will be and its not as if Williams departure is a shocker. It had been in the works for a while.
What about people like former chairman Bill Fox who at one time had sit down protests aimed at him in he late 80′s and 1990 before Jack Walker made his colossal impact. He had a far harder job than Williams did when there really was no money. Fox didn’t have ungrateful rich owners in the background stabbing the person who left them all that money in the back. Oh but I’ve read that he could be quite rude to the fans. So there’s the contrast between him and Williams. His job was far harder but he didn’t present a “friendly face” 24/7.
The stories about Jack Walker saving the club from extinction are wrong. He is already the ultimate legend as it is his impact does not need to be exaggerated. I’ve read clippings going back years in the local library and it seems problems were at their worst in 1983 several years before Jack bought the club in January 1991. Rovers would have survived had Jack not taken over. Today however I saw someone claim that the club would probably be extinct now if not for Williams. That would be laughable if it wasn’t so ludicrous. I’ll probably be abused for not treating Williams as a saint and I believe a lot of the praise is simply sheep mentality. If you look closely at Williams record as I have it is not as outstanding as some would have you believe. I don’t care if he was a nice guy. I wouldn’t care if he was the nicest man who ever lived that does not shield people from criticism.
People have described him as the best chairman of all 92 league clubs. Have people looked at every single chairman in the league and made a comparison to back up this claim. What about people like Steve Gibson at Middlesbrough who saved his club from extinction? I don’t think much of his taste in managers but saving your club from going out of business deserves nothing but the highest praise. Unless anyone ever saves Man United from bankruptcy (probably unlikely some oil baron would likely save them) in that case they should be accused of treason.
The people who should be getting this level of praise are Venkys. They are the ones who have brought ambition to this club. They did get a better reception last Wednesday (well overdue) and are now of course being accused of waiting until the days after the game to sort out the final payoff with Williams.
It is laughable in the extreme that I saw one fans accusing them of having no communication towards the fans.
In 3 months they have spoken to the fans more times than the previous owners did in over 10 years.
As for the new chairman I fully expect that announcement will be made in the next few days. You can guarantee that there will be complaints if it is someone from outside the club. Of course Saint Williams was brought in from outside the club back in 1997.
Of course if an “outsider” is brought in this would conveniently be forgotten.
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Premier League Mindset, Premier League Mentality, BRFC Attitude
Vinjay
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