But what about that Tackle????

After quite a few emails, messages and tweets, asking for me to continue with my blog, which is being written to give an insight of what I have seen and discovered during the last 5 years at Blackburn Rovers, I have decided to continue putting my side of the story out there.

 I may have been excluded from the new WAR (WE ARE ROVERS) for reasons to yet be explained by its self-elected panel, but that does not stop me writing the real story about our club and giving supporters the facts, warts and all.

Rovers went into the new year with a bit of momentum (arrgggghhhhh I sound like Kean now) Oh well. In the Background, things were now getting serious within the BRFC Action group, we was more organised and more determined to unearth the truth about what was really happening at the club. The fact Kean was still there, and we had been tipped off that he had a new contract, despite him publically denying it; we knew this was much bigger than just a manager situation.

 Players who were supposed to not be fit, Nelsen being one, suddenly transferred out and made the most miraculous recovery. What was more astonishing was Rovers picked up his wages for a further 3 years after he departed, as the cracks started to appear in Kean’s armoury.

 The experienced players at Ewood were having their contracts reviewed by Jerome Anderson, who had his own office at the training ground. However this was Anderson’s first big mistake as it brought his associates into play, as Philippe Huber and Indoo Sella Di Monteluce made Brockall their second home. Not even a £500 per week, every week backhander from Kean to another Rovers employee (who I will bring into play in another blog) could keep this story for secret forever. 

These 3 are part of a company called Crescendo. Crescendo are based in Brunei and were the vehicle used to bring Venkys into the discussions with the Walkers Trust. If you Google all three of the above mentioned, you will find Global Eleven, a company which went belly up, and what it was for (This will give you a clue for what Rovers was initially lined up for), you will also see Kentaro and SEM. Incidentally Kentaro is now bust too, after Huber’s involvement with the FIFA Scandal. Kentaro were also a partner of the English FA and National football team.

Their approach was, if you are not with us, you are against us as they were paying up 80% of contracts of players of the old rear guard, whilst giving new deals to players well past it, as they towed the Kean line.  Michel Salgado told me, he had heard the following:

Salgado word for word said:

That’s what I’ve heard, that Kean and some strange people from Glasgow having shares.

 Nelsen , Roberts, Keith, Emerton and me were offered up to 80% of contract to be released on free, they wanted to save money and make business by signing some crap player from Anderson inflating the commissions,

I asked him more on Kean and he replied

Very bad people behind Kean in Glasgow

Anderson is getting the money from moving players

In and out, all the players are coming through him; he is even asking for commissions to renew contracts, last time was around October

This conversation took place on the 6^th November 2012

As a group Mark and I were now taking real-hands on approach to the investigation and dedicating most of our spare time doing this? Problems we had in the early days, was we didn’t know what we looking for and was not too sure where and how to find a legitimate lead. Phil Thompson was tasked in getting us a Meeting with the Premier League.

We had one guy come forward called Muhammad Ibrar, who told some wild and wonderful tales, a few things he appeared to get right. He claimed he was talking to Venkys and in particular Balaji Rao’s Personal aid, Amit. Mark and I wasted weeks talking to Ibrar and it was a wild goose chase. We couldn’t work out if he was for real or just a fruitcake, sadly it was more of the latter, although I do think at some point he had spoke with Amit.

 He once claimed he had left some evidence near the Jack Walker Statue. We sent Rob Crabtree to go and investigate; it was more like a game of treasure hunt. Rob found a package and met the young Asian Character; however all the package contained was a letter, which is better described as some sort of love letter to a member of the Action Group Committee. These types of things were not helping and wasting much valuable time. However we had to chase every lead however stupid it appeared. When you are unsure what you are looking for, then it really is a needle in Haystack.

Jerome Anderson then did that famous half hour slot on SKY Sports, claiming how his life was awful, how his family had been targeted, including his son. He went on about a tackle his son made in a friendly, which was probably the highlight of his son Myles Anderson’s career at Rovers. He claimed he had worked for free to help the Owners. I was actually embarrassed for him as each word spurted out of his mouth. He made himself look a complete and utter dipstick.  I can clear this up now, the whole interview was a farce, not only did he have a right good innings in terms of cash received during that window, but he had his cronies in, nailing down our younger players to contracts too, which had nice clauses in to ensure whatever happened in the future, he would have a right good do out of it. 

In addition to this he brought players in like Formica, His transfer was vetoed 3 times by the Premier League due to third party ownership and passport issues. Not difficult to get an Italian Passport when your name is Indoo Sella. However despite the very nature of the transfer, the Premier League allowed it, suddenly from not qualifying, he qualified. Which showed another jink in the Premier Leagues testing, as after all the Venkys had been deemed fit and proper to own Rovers, but everything was pointing to something very untoward

Simon Conning another SEM Agent was tasked with dealing with the young player contracts. This was confirmed by a Key witness (Who I will bring into Play in a later blog, he was the guy receiving weekly payments from Kean of £500.00) as the money dries up, the Canaries Sing, You would do well to remember this Jerome.

With the old board of Directors letter, which was signed off by John Williams, Tom Finn and Martin Goodman, now surfacing suggesting third party interference at the club from SEM Against the boards wishes, suddenly a case was starting to form, as was the question, Who reallly owns Blackburn Rovers?

Away from the Action Group, a Rovers supporter from Sweden Daniel Grabko had put together a business proposal for a supporter buy out. I first saw this on the well know Blackburn Rovers supporters site BRFCS, But was presented it at Work by Wayne Wild, As I had now gained employment at WEC as a Supervisor. Wayne asked me my thoughts, I told him although the concept was there, the figures just didn’t stack up as the type of sums and figures within the business plan, was more catered for a Manchester City or Liverpool. He agreed, and said he thought the same, but he felt with some good number crunching and new figures it could be plausible. I offered my support of the idea and Wayne got the ball rolling to make it more attractive, which to his credit he did very quickly and got a number of people on board to support it, including MPS, Prominent community figure heads and local businesses.

However there was one stumbling block, the Rovers Trust another entity already existed, and for BRSIT to even have a chance, they needed that Supporters direct rubber stamp and government stamp that the Rovers trust had. Months later these two organisations merged together and a new marketing campaign started, which was a good thing as there was just no drive from those already holding the keys who were running the trust.

The investigation was now, bringing other supporters into the fold as Philip Lingard who was not only a very good source of information, but he had great contacts to get information we got, further investigated. It became obvious any meeting we got with the authorities, Philip needed to be one of the panel who went. We were also working hard with Journalist like Nick Harris and Andy Cryer, trying to gather information and see what help they could offer. This was getting really hard, as so many people were feeding stories, but had nothing like a piece of paper to back it up.

Stories on Social media for the previous 6 months had talked about Gangsters from Glasgow having a stake in the club, which sounded more like the Krays’s than Rovers. I initially dismissed such a claim until Salgado made reference to it, which was followed by me finding out that Balaji Rao’s Body guard, whose username on BRFCS Forums was formerly MG Road on. But is now Sergei the  Meerkat, is actually Scottish and goes by the name of Moe Thompson, if you look hard enough on Google images, he is the guy with gingery hair and beard who is often with Balaji.

For the rest of the season the investigation continued, whilst the media was used as vehicle to constantly make reference to the dossier. This was not because we had found much, but more to try and put pressure on the owners, SEM, Kentaro, Crescendo and the Premier League. They didn’t know what we had, so as Kean used to communicate via media to India, we decided to do the same. This may have given false hope at the time for supporters, as they wanted us to release all we knew, but at that stage, we didn’t know enough bar hear say, a few spoken conversations with some revelations from ex players and ex and current employees, some account details from Anderson and associates and press articles which were out there already in the public domain. 

A picture was growing, as was a story, but we needed more, especially as Phil Thompson had now secured a meeting with the Premier League to take part at the end of the season.

In my next blog, I will discuss the MPS Who got involved, the Premier league meeting, FA Meeting, Parliament Meeting, Football League Meeting and Rovers relegation