Blackburn Rover Football Club
Blackburn Rovers F.C. – English Premier League Football Club
Blackburn Rovers Football Club is an English Premier League football club based in the town of Blackburn, Lancashire. It is one of only three teams to be founder members of both the Football League and the Premier League, the others being Aston Villa and Everton.
Blackburn Rovers Football Club was established in 1875, and in 1888 became a founding member of The Football League. In 1890 Rovers moved to its permanent home at Ewood Park. Until the formation of the Premier League in 1992, the majority of the club’s success was pre-1930 when they won the league and FA Cup on several occasions. Their relegation in 1966 was followed by 26 successive seasons of football outside the top flight.
In 1992, Blackburn were promoted to the new Premier League a year after being taken over by local steel baron Jack Walker, who installed Kenny Dalglish as manager. In 1995, Blackburn became league champions, having spent millions of pounds on players like Alan Shearer and Chris Sutton. However, the title-winning team was quickly split up and, in 1999, the club were relegated. They were promoted back to the Premiership two years later, just after Walker’s death, and have been in the top flight ever since. During this time they have qualified for the UEFA Cup four times: once as League Cup winners, twice as the Premiership’s sixth-placed team and once via the Intertoto Cup.
The club’s Latin motto “Arte et labore”, which was used by the town council before the club were formed, literally translated means “by art and by labour”.
Blackburn Rover F.C. Club Information
Full name : Blackburn Rovers Football Club
Nickname(s) : Rovers, Blue and Whites
Founded : 1875
Ground : Ewood Park, (Capacity: 31,367)
Owner : Fred Walker
Chairman : John Williams
Manager : Paul Ince
League : English Premier League
Club takeover
In January 2008, the Dan Williams-led consortium interested in taking the club over withdrew interest. The club are prepared to sell and other groups are still interested.[6]
On Sunday 20 April 2008, Blackburn Rovers were yet again linked with another consortium led bid. This time from new JJB Sports owner Chris Ronnie, and a Icelandic based consortium. Whether this will lead to a formal bid being presented to the Walker Trustees, is still yet to be seen.[7]
On Sunday 8 June 2008, Blackburn Rovers were again linked to Chris Ronnie’s consortium in the National Press. In which the Sunday People reported “Chris Ronnie is closing in on his takeover of Blackburn Rovers”, the aritcle also went on to say “Ronnie has had four (4) meetings with Rothschilds, the financiers selling the club for the Jack Walker Trustees, and there has been ’significant progress.”
However, on 6 July, it was revealed that Ronnie had pulled out of a bid to buy the club, and that Chowdery had a bid of £30 million pounds rejected.
Source: Blackburn Rover F.C., Barclays English Premier League Football Club information at wikipedia.org