DEC 17 — It might be the last weekend before Christmas, but there’s not much festive cheer being directed by Blackburn Rovers fans towards their manager Steve Kean or the club’s owners, the Indian poultry company Venky’s.
Rovers are rooted firmly in the Premier League relegation zone, having won just two games so far this season. Even the most recent victory — a 4-2 home success over Swansea a couple of weeks ago — did little to raise spirits amongst the Ewood Park faithful as the post-match talk was dominated by a heated debate over the rights and wrongs of some fans booing striker Yakubu when he celebrated a goal by running over to receive the congratulations of his much-maligned manager.
Rovers now face a potentially decisive pair of home fixtures: today against West Bromwich Albion, and on Tuesday night in a relegation six-pointer Lancashire derby with bottom-placed Bolton.
If Blackburn fail to win either of those games, they will face a long and hard struggle to avoid relegation — especially as their following two fixtures are away at Liverpool and Manchester United; a pair of home wins, though, could propel them away from the relegation zone and inject a rare dose of positivity before Christmas arrives.
And how they need some positivity. It’s been a tough year for Kean and the Venky’s, who have continually lost the PR battle since their arrival at Ewood Park last November. In the emotive world of professional football, that PR battle can often be decisive: it’s not necessarily what you’re doing that counts, it’s what the fans think you’re doing.
Upon arrival in Blackburn 13 months ago, the Venky’s quickly set themselves up for a fall by declaring their intentions to turn the club into regular Champions League contestants and sign players of the stature of Ronaldinho and David Beckham.
That’s a dangerous game, especially when the talk isn’t followed up by action, and the Venky’s failure to follow up their hot air with a significant transfer kitty was a cause for alarm. It immediately looked like they didn’t really know what they were doing — whether that was true or not, that was the impression created.
Instead of signing superstars, the new owners’ most significant early move was to sack experienced manager Sam Allardyce and replace him with his coach, Kean, who had never previously managed any club.
That move prompted a chorus of complaints from supporters, and it’s a chorus that has never been quietened as fans continue to clamour for the dismissal of a man they believe is out of his depth.
I have a lot of sympathy for Kean, a former colleague of mine at Reading (where he was a member of Tommy Burns’ backroom team) who has been placed in a very difficult situation not of his own making.
He is a hard-working and decent man who clearly understands football inside-out after spending more than a decade as a coach at Reading, Fulham, Real Sociedad, Coventry and Blackburn.
When the owners decided to sack Allardyce and offer Kean the job, what was he supposed to do? Say “no thanks, the fans might not like it”, or take the opportunity that had come his way and try to make the most of it? There was only one option, and Kean doesn’t deserve the vitriol that is being poured in his direction.
But whether he deserves it or not, the criticism won’t abate (unless, of course, he leads the team on a six-game winning streak including victories in those away games at Anfield and Old Trafford).
That’s simply how fans work: they’re not happy, so they’re going to show it by booing and calling for the manager’s dismissal — even though everybody knows that Kean isn’t the underlying cause of the team’s woes.
In fact, the current plight at Blackburn provides an interesting example of the rights and obligations of supporters: are Blackburn fans correct to direct such intense and sustained protests because they sincerely believe they have the club’s best long-term interests at heart? Or should they just put their negative views to one side and focus all their energies into supporting their team through an extremely challenging period?
After all, it can hardly help the morale amongst Blackburn’s players to have one of their goalscorers booed by his own fans for celebrating with his manager — and the players are not the ones blamed by Blackburn fans for their current situation.
Fans being unhappy with an owner or a manager is hardly a new scenario, and by now you’d have thought that supporters would have worked out the best way to show their discontent in a constructive fashion.
The ideal solution, surely, would be for fans to come together and agree on an organised campaign which insists on protests taking place only before and after matchdays, with nothing but a positive, supportive display of solidarity during the actual games.
That way, fans could make their feelings known whilst still remaining supportive of the team, aiming their anger in the direction of the right people and avoiding the potential of being blamed for bad results by creating a negative atmosphere.
However, that would be a rather clinical, rational and unimpassioned way of dealing with the situation, and that’s not how football fans are. Supporting a football club — or any sporting team — is a strange and irrational business that gets to the heart of human relationships in all their complexities.
Fully grown adults with responsible jobs and loving families spending a small fortune and getting themselves all worked up about 22 men running around a field? On the face of it, being a football fan is a faintly ludicrous occupation.
Yet it possesses the power to stir deep feelings amongst people of all shapes and sizes all over the planet, so it cannot be dismissed as worthless or pointless. Due to the very nature of the activity, though, it cannot be approached from a rational point of view — you can’t think logically if you want to understand what being a fan involves.
So although it might make sense for Blackburn fans to realise that their players are struggling and therefore need help and encouragement, that common-sense approach just won’t happen. Instead there will be frustration, boos, chants, insults and self-destructive anger. And when a club sets off down that negative road, there’s a word for the likely destination: relegation.
* The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist.
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