How Blackburn went from Premier League king to brink of 3rd tier

Back when millions rather than billions were enough to procure an English crown, Blackburn Rovers were the first Premier League club accused of buying success. Now, 22 years later, the once-proud Lancashire outfit may have to plan for jaunts down the M6 to Shrewsbury Town and Walsall.

The bottom of the Championship is tight. With a Birmingham City victory at Bristol City on Sunday, Blackburn needs a better result or to lose by two less goals than Nottingham Forest to stay afloat. Should Birmingham fail to pick up points or draw, it will be relegated if Blackburn overcomes Brentford and Forest beats Ipswich Town. It's complicated, but the potential outcome is simple: Blackburn is at great risk of becoming the first former Premier League champion to sink to the third tier.

England's best

Supplemented by the savings account of Jack Walker, a local businessman who began earning coin in the sheet metal industry, Blackburn sat at the summit of the country's game in May 1995. The Alan Shearer and Chris Sutton strike partnership - nicknamed S.A.S. - combined for 49 goals after both players were acquired for record fees, so dismissive calls of purchasing the title were inevitable. Nevertheless, the way Kenny Dalglish wisely invested to take Blackburn from the lower reaches of the second rung to the club's first title in 81 years was mesmeric.

Blackburn limped over the line as it clung to first place thanks to Manchester United drawing at West Ham United in their last game of the season, but Rovers' exploits had won a legion of admirers. Their direct yet cohesive football, flanked by traditional wingers Jason Wilcox and Stuart Ripley, safeguarded by cut-price defenders like Colin Hendry, Henning Berg, and Graeme Le Saux, and heroically protected between the sticks by Tim Flowers, delighted fans.

In a similar way to how Leicester City's shock 2015-16 title win was countered, the sobered giants went prowling for firepower when Blackburn reigned. Dennis Bergkamp moved to Arsenal, Liverpool added Stan Collymore, and Newcastle United picked up Les Ferdinand. Blackburn, on the other hand, signed Gary Croft, a defender whose most notable contribution to football was to become the first to wear an electronic tag in a professional league match.

Dalglish was in the stands when a goalless draw with Manchester United sent Blackburn into the second tier four years after collecting the Premier League crown. The managers who oversaw the descent were first Roy Hodgson, and then Brian Kidd.

"It is sad for the club, you can see Jack Walker's eyes were all watery," Dalglish told BBC Sport.

Poultry savings

It took two seasons for Blackburn to return to the top flight, and when Graeme Souness decided to leave to take over Newcastle instead, Mark Hughes enjoyed his finest years in management in the mid-noughties. Morten Gamst Pederson and David Bentley performed audacious flicks and voracious hits, and scraggly-haired Tugay trotted around in the middle of the park before he felt compelled to wave his wand. All were present in a 4-3 dismantling of Manchester United in February 2006, with Bentley scoring a hat-trick in his first match since switching permanently from Arsenal.

Unfortunately, those moments may have alerted Indian firm Venky's, which made its money in poultry, to the potential rewards of purchasing Rovers from the trust handled by Walker's daughter, Lynda Matthewman, in 2010. Any followers' hopes of a second coming atop the Premier League under the chicken floggers' ownership were short-lived, as the club was used as merely a vehicle to help peddle drumsticks and thighs, and potentially as a test run before owning an Indian Super League franchise in the future.

The lacking earnestness and orchestrated boardroom backrubbing of Venky's venture was apparent in the hire of little-known Steve Kean as first-team coach alongside Sam Allardyce months before the takeover. Kean's agent was also pivotal in brokering the new ownership structure at Blackburn.

"Steve stood out above the rest through his personality, experience, and knowledge of football at the highest level," Sam Allardyce, presumably puppeteered by Venky's, said of his new No. 2.

Just over a year later, Kean was in sole charge of the 1994-95 title winner, and chairman John Williams and managing director Tom Finn departed in the next few months. Blackburn subsequently stuttered at the end of the 2010-11 term and, somewhat unsurprisingly given the haunted expression that Kean wore in the technical area, was relegated the next season.

Self-professed glory hunter following Blackburn's Premier League triumph, Toby Sprigings recalled the doomed Kean tenure in an article for Football365:

You know that feeling you occasionally get when you just know, through and through, that you could do a better job than someone in football who you're watching on TV? That was how every Blackburn fan felt about Steve Kean, including those in jail and those who'd recently submitted to a lobotomy to cure their mental demons. Boy does it suck, when one of those football coaches with the 'dead man walking' look joins your relegation battle. Middlesborough (sic) fans will currently recognise this, as will Wolves fans from the Terry Connor days.

In the early days of the 2012-13 second-tier conquest, Kean resigned. A scapegoat was finally vanquished from BB2, but it ushered in a period of upheaval. When Paul Lambert announced in April 2016 that he would resign at the end of the season, the club had plunged into £102.4 million worth of debt. The hiring of Owen Coyle predictably yielded little in the way of results, and Tony Mowbray - another who fulfills the "dead man walking" quota - has put in a commendable showing since his February hiring but, ultimately, his efforts could be fruitless.

Throughout all of this, Blackburn has become a rudderless entity. Venky's presence is nowhere to be seen as loyalists unfurl banners declaring a staunch allegiance to the club, but demanding that the company relinquishes its hold on the former champion. A League Cup clash with Crewe Alexandra last August drew just 2,913 fans through Ewood Park's gates - Rovers' lowest attendance in 30 years - and supporter protests haven't been heeded by those who can intervene during Blackburn's plight, such as the Football Association or the Football League. Fan-led Rovers Trust have tried to assume control of the club, but Venky's won't reply to any attempts of contact from the collective.

For Blackburn, a town of 100,000 which was punching above its weight in having a Premier League team - let alone a champion - this neglect has been ruinous.

"We're not Manchester United, it's Blackburn Rovers. It really is a big thing about the community. It's about peoples' lives, and a lot of people have put a lot of store in the club. The club and the community go hand-in-hand," Glenn Keeley, a defender for the club between 1976 and 1987, told The Fall of Blackburn Rovers documentary in the summer of 2012.

Blackburn's potential relegation from the Championship wouldn't just be a footballing tragedy. Venky's have cut bonds between a town and a club of which the locals used to be proud.

Blackburn no longer represents Blackburn.

(Photos courtesy: Action Images)