Tag Archives: Lancashire club

Blackburn Rovers sack Sam Allardyce

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blackburn_rovers_crest_lancastria

Blackburn have announced they have sacked manager Sam Allardyce.

Allardyce, 56, was relieved of his duties along with his assistant Neil McDonald by the club’s new owners, the Venky’s Group from India.

Rovers have lost three of their last five games, including a 2-1 defeat by his former club Bolton on Sunday.

“I am very shocked and disappointed to be leaving Blackburn,” said Allardyce in a statement released through the League Managers’ Association.

“I am extremely proud to have managed this club and I enjoyed a fantastic relationship with the players, my staff and the supporters during my time in charge.

“I now wish them and the football club every success for the future.”

Rovers are currently 13th in the Premier League, five points above the relegation zone.

The club announced that the first-team coach Steve Kean will take temporary charge of the club.

Sam Allardyce

Sam Allardyce

Former Bolton and Newcastle manager Allardyce joined Blackburn in December 2008 and guided the Lancashire club to a respectable 10th place in the Premier League last season.

The club made a steady start to the current campaign, taking 18 points from 14 games to leave them 11th in the Premier League at the end of November.

But a poor run of recent results, including a 4-2 defeat by Tottenham and a 7-1 loss at Manchester United, have seen Rovers slide closer to the relegation zone.

However, had the club taken three points against 10-man Bolton on Sunday, they would have moved to sixth in the Premier League.

Blackburn captain Ryan Nelsen said he learned of Allardyce’s sacking after receiving a text from a reporter in his native New Zealand.

“Not in my wildest dreams did I see this coming, nor did anyone else because of the job he has done since he has come to Blackburn,” he told BBC Radio 5 live.


“When he took over, it was a club that was absolutely in diabolical trouble and he turned it into a very efficient, streamline club that has spent no money and has done extremely well.

“A huge big leadership has gone from the club and the Premier League is unforgiving if you don’t have anyone directing the ship.

“They [Venky's] have a plan for the club – they must to have made a decision like this. But it’s ruthless.

“I feel gutted for the man, the players liked him, the club liked him.”

Sam Allardyce

Sam Allardyce

Blackburn striker Morten Gamst Pedersen added on his personal website : “The table situation does not reflect on how our performance has been in this year’s Premier League season.”

The Rao family completed their £43m takeover of Rovers through their newly formed company, Venky’s London Limited, on 19 October.

And Venky’s chairwoman Anuradha Desai had told the BBC last month that the group had “promised manager Allardyce funds to spend in the January transfer window”.

But in a statement on Monday, the club said: “We have taken this decision as part of our wider plans and ambitions for the club.

“We would like to put on record our thanks to Mr Allardyce for his contribution to Blackburn Rovers Football Club.”

Allardyce earned his reputation with Bolton, guiding the club to the Premier League in 2001 as well as helping the Trotters to their first appearance in Europe in 2005.

He resigned after eight years at the Reebok Stadium in April 2007, joining Newcastle the following month.

But his tenure at St James’s Park lasted just 24 matches, leaving the club in January 2008.

After an 11-month tenure out of football, Allardyce joined Blackburn in December 2008 after Paul Ince was sacked with the club second-from-bottom in the Premier League.

Under Allardyce’s guidance, Rovers finished 15th in 2009 before reaching the semi-finals of the Carling Cup at the start of 2010.

Richard Bevan, chief executive of the LMA, said: “When new owners take over a club, sadly, the manager’s position often hangs by a thread.

“To Sam’s great misfortune this has now happened twice and, on both occasions, it has been extremely difficult to understand the thinking behind the dismissal.”

“It is ironic that one minute Sam can be proposed as the next England manager and the next, he finds himself out of work.”

The club have not indicated a timeframe for the appointment of a new manager.

Former Tottenham boss Martin Jol, who who resigned as Ajax manager last week, ex-Aston Villa and Leicester City manager Martin O’Neill and former Rovers favourite Alan Shearer have been linked with the Ewood Park job.

Blackpool promoted to English premier league

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Blackpool’s footballing heroes have taken part in a victory parade along the town’s promenade to celebrate their promotion to the Premier League.

The Seasiders won the Championship play-off against Cardiff on Saturday.

Thousands of fans lined the famous prom to greet manager Ian Holloway and his players for their triumphant homecoming.

More than 35,000 Blackpool fans travelled to Wembley for the final – a quarter of the town’s population.

The game, which the team won 3-2, was said to be worth £90m to the Lancashire club.

Blackpool Football Club Team Manager - Ian Holloway

A native of Kingswood, Bristol, Ian Holloway opted to manage in the North-West for the very first time when he agreed to become the new boss of the Seasiders on May 22, 2009.

The former Bristol Rovers and Queens Park Rangers midfielder became the permanent replacement for previous manager Simon Grayson, after Tony Parkes had initially taken caretaker charge for the remainder of the 2008-2009 campaign.

A popular figure with the media, Holloway started his managerial career with Bristol Rovers in 1996 while continuing as a player. His managerial education continued in 2001 when he was appointed the new manager of Queens Park Rangers, another one of his previous clubs. He was tasked with a near-impossible mission to keep QPR in the old Division One but the time wasn’t on his side as the team were relegated. Holloway returned to the division with QPR three seasons later but was placed on gardening leave in 2006 after constant speculation linking him with a move to Leicester City.

As the sun shone through at the Blackpool end of Wembley stadium, making for a picturesque scene of luminous tangerine, the shaded Cardiff City fans had to sit and endure their side twice lose the lead in a pulsating encounter where the stakes and the temperature could not have been higher.

It will be Ian Holloway’s Blackpool that will attempt to defy the odds and survive in the Premier League next season.

Michael Chopra’s early strike set the tone for an entertaining first half. Blackpool equalised through a sublime 25-yard free kick from playmaker Charlie Adam, but with Blackpool in the ascendancy Joe Ledley broke the offside trap to restore Dave Jones’ side’s advantage.

The Seasiders continued to press and drew level for the second time thanks to a Gary Taylor-Fletcher header. Brett Ormerod grabbed the winning goal just before the break, with a well-taken toe-poke.

Chopra hit the bar in the second half, but the day belonged to Blackpool, who will take their place in the top flight of English football for the first time since 1971.

Known within the media industry as ‘rent-a-quote’, Holloway’s enthusiastic and philosophical outlook on football usually grab all the headlines, but there is a side to Holloway which people rarely give him credit for. He is in fact a football manager with an abundance of talent.

This feat compares favourably with anything that has been achieved in British football over recent seasons, and Blackpool’s Keith Southern, who put in a towering performance on Saturday, revealed his manager’s team-talk before the final gave his side the edge.

“His pre-match team-talk was brilliant,” Southern told Skysports.

“He told us how he’d been out of football for a year and how hardly anyone in the game had talked to him, but how privileged he was to have got back with such a wonderful bunch of lads and how proud he was of us. There were quite a few of us close to tears. And he told us this was our time, that we were the team in form and that we were the team with the most belief. He said we deserved a crack at the big time as much as anyone. It was stirring stuff.”

The man everyone calls Ollie fully deserves his chance to be placed among the elite of English football, but he is entirely aware of the task that awaits him.


“I can’t be prouder of these boys, but I am going to have to be ruthless and think about what I’m going to do,” Holloway said.

“I might have to coach a different way. Chelsea and these teams will have to come to Bloomfield Road and they better have the right spirit because we will have a right go at them. It’s all about getting each individual to believe in themselves and shine.”

Ancelotti, Wenger and Ferguson, beware.