Blackburn Rovers labelled a 'laughing stock' after Sheffield Wednesday abandonment | OneFootball

FLW's Rovers Fan Pundit reveals his thoughts on this weekends events that saw their Championship match vs Ipswich Town abandoned

This article is part of Football League World's 'Terrace Talk' series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…

Blackburn Rovers have been forced to watch a match abandoned while leading on the scoreboard for the second time this season, less than one week after playing a rearranged fixture against Ipswich Town for the same reason.

The recurring nightmare at Ewood Park has prompted serious questions about the club's infrastructure and, more importantly, the commitment of their owners, Venky's, to addressing the obvious issues at the ground.

Although journalist Alan Nixon reported via his Patreon that there was no real worry about the ground falling under EFL regulations - after the club sought expert opinion, FLW spoke to a familiar face who is concerned.

Blackburn Rovers labelled a "laughing stock" after two abandoned matches against Ipswich Town and Sheffield Wednesday

FLW's Rovers Fan Pundit, Simon Middlehurst, believes that something seriously needs to be done about the situation, and his frustration speaks to a genuine crisis at the club by way of the Venky's.

The Ewood Park pitch pretty much sums up everything wrong at Blackburn under the Venky's ownership, and Middlehurst was clear in his assessment of what the repeated abandonments mean for Rovers.

"Something needs to be done," Middlehurst told FLW. "The reports are coming out that there’s investment issues, hence why the pitch hasn’t been sorted which kind of shows where we’re at as a club at the minute, and what sort of state the club is in."

"At that level, that shouldn’t be happening twice in a season, and twice in what, two, three months," he added.

As mentioned earlier, Blackburn have now experienced two postponed league games in the space of just over ten weeks, and whilst the weather has been genuinely terrible, the underlying problem is that Ewood Park's drainage is simply not fit for purpose at Championship level.

Middlehurst was clear about the damage this causes to the club off the pitch as well.

"It shouldn't be happening, it's quite embarrassing really as well, we already at times have been a laughing stock, and this just increases it," he said.

"Something seriously needs to be done about that, that's potentially cost Blackburn another three points," the Fan Pundit added.

That Ipswich match was replayed in full on December 2nd, with Blackburn eventually losing 1-1 after leading 1-0 when the original game was called off in the 80th minute.

The precedent is seemingly now set, and there is no guarantee that the Sheffield Wednesday fixture will be treated any differently.

"Something seriously needs to be done" by the Venky's regarding Ewood Park pitch

Middlehurst then highlighted how the abandonments have cost Blackburn in multiple ways. "It happened at Ipswich when we were 1-0 up with ten minutes to go, Sheffield Wednesday 1-0 up with twenty, thirty minutes to go," he explained.

"Anything can happen, we could've got another goal. Look at what happened when we played Ipswich, we ended up conceding in the 94th minute, who knows what can happen when we play Sheffield Wednesday again."

Ultimately, for a club desperate to push away from the bottom end of the Championship table, these are points that could make all the difference come May. Currently four points clear of the relegation zone, the Venky's cannot afford to keep giving away opportunities in this manner.

The Indian conglomerate has apparently put an additional £140m into the club over the last fifteen years, according to the Daily Mail, yet the stadium and its facilities have been allowed to deteriorate.

Nixon's aforementioned report provides little comfort to supporters watching their club embarrassed on a national scale as well, with Middlehurst concluding, "The image of the club looks increasingly worse."

The question now is whether Venky's will finally act, or whether this embarrassment will simply become another chapter in the long catalogue of disappointments that have happened since they took over.