Intruding on private grief is never a pleasant experience, hence the outpouring of sympathy directed towards Brian Kidd after his players' shameful surrender left them only the faintest hope of avoiding relegation to Division One.
Anything other than a victory against Kidd's former club Manchester United on Wednesday will spell the end of Rovers' seven-year Premiership residency. Even a win will take Rovers to Newcastle on Sunday knowing that victory could still mean relegation if Southampton beat Everton.
League campaigns are determined over far more than one match, but this loss to already relegated Forest should forever be remembered in the club's history. Whatever the future holds for Rovers and Jack Walker, this was the day the owner's dream died.
Walker has invested up to £80 million of his personal fortune on trying to establish Blackburn as a power on a European, as well as English, scale. Four traumatic years after apparently starting that process by winning the Premiership, this performance and result was, to coin one of Kidd's own phrases, "a sad reflection" on how dramatically the vision has evaporated.
"The players won't get a better owner than Jack Walker," said Kidd. "Look at what he has done for the community. That is the hurtful thing. When you see how this club has fallen, it hurts. It certainly hurts me and I have only been here five months.
"As a player I never suffered the words I had to dish out in the dressing-room after the game. I have played rubbish, missed sitters, missed a million chances, but I have always tried to have a go. That didn't happen against Forest or, last week, at Charlton." Passion and commitment were the day's themes from before kick-off, when Walker addressed supporters appealing for them to back their team. So, too, did Kidd and assorted players via video messages on the Ewood Park scoreboard. But, as wake's go, the afternoon proved curiously lacking in emotion. The players, as Kidd correctly noted, certainly lacked that quality, but the supporters, in a disappointing crowd of 24,565, seemed similarly unconcerned.
Blackburn is not a "football town" in the way that neighbouring Burnley is, and the fact that Walker and Kidd made their pre-match pleas demonstrated their lack of faith in the supporters.
This feature offers a neat metaphor for the rise and decline of Blackburn, a rise founded upon huge finance, but little substance. Ray Harford, under whom Blackburn's slide began after the championship season, always claimed that even when they captured the title, he and Kenny Dalglish were aware that the club lacked infrastructure, so hastily had it been reinvented by Walker's millions.
Walker created his own football version of Disneyland. All glitz and highly entertaining, but scratch beneath the surface and the foundations were vulnerable. Kidd has been forced to look beneath that surface since taking over from Roy Hodgson and the result will be there to see if Blackburn are relegated.
Walker, who can do no wrong in the eyes of his home town, should shoulder some blame. The laws of accountability dictate that he should accept the appointments of Harford and Hodgson were poor, while he did permit both managers to pay extraordinary sums for mediocre players who have brought the team to the brink of disaster.
"The inmates have been running this place for far too long," said Kidd, neatly summing up the sort of "player-power" problems that blighted Blackburn almost as soon as Dalglish stepped down after the title campaign. In Kidd's eyes, at least, that long-term lack of character and resolve has brought the club to its present low ebb. It was certainly evident in the way the defence conceded goals to Dougie Freedman and Chris Bart-Williams against Forest and then failed to capitalise on the sending-off of Steve Chettle just before half-time.
A superbly-struck Kevin Gallacher equaliser and missed penalty by the same player were as close as Blackburn came to lifting some of the air of inevitability that now surrounds the club.
"I know what needs to be done," concluded Kidd. "Nothing would have covered that up, even if we had won this game. We are looking to build something here, but those players who are staying will have to show a lot more passion and commitment."
Blackburn Rovers: Filan, Croft (Johnson 61), Henchoz, Peacock, Davidson, Gillespie, Carsley, Wilcox, Duff (Dunn 68), Gallacher, Jansen (Davies 59). Subs Not Used: Broomes, Flowers. Booked: Wilcox. Goals: Gallacher 25.
Nottingham Forest: Crossley, LouisJean, Gough, Chettle, Bonalair, Porfirio (Allou 70), Palmer, Bart-Williams, Rogers, Harewood (Edwards 90), Freedman. Subs Not Used: Lyttle, Van Hooijdonk, Beasant. Sent Off: Chettle (45). Booked: Louis-Jean, Porfirio.
Goals: Freedman 12, Bart-Williams 56.
Referee: G Poll (Tring).
