Start a fans Trust in case of administration

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What do STAR make of the current turn of events?

Any point in pointing across the fans PoV or are we resigning ourselves to the fate of the money men?

[STAR Liaison]

What do STAR make of the current turn of events?

Any point in pointing across the fans PoV or are we resigning ourselves to the fate of the money men?

I know this sounds lame but we're working on it and have got a board meeting this week.

Delight is not a word that springs to mind.

[Green]

Not at all, I wonder how much any of us can really do about it anyway, from JM downwards. Good luck with it.

[Pat Butchers Ring]

Board meeting for a comment? I guess the club ownership will be last thing on the agenda right after the price of the tomato & basil soup. Get some back bone STAR and start being the fans voice.

[westendgirl]

Board meeting for a comment? I guess the club ownership will be last thing on the agenda right after the price of the tomato & basil soup. Get some back bone STAR and start being the fans voice.

you should read this:
http://star-reading.org/index.php/star/

No mention of soup there though

[Royal Lady]

STAR should have ignored requests to keep quiet and kept pushing imo. What were TSI or anyone going to do about it? Stop them attending board meetings? Not give them any "information" in the future - I know it's easy for people like me to say - but STAR are representative of all fans of this club and should be making a lot more noise about this imo.

[Royal Biscuitman]

STAR should have ignored requests to keep quiet and kept pushing imo. What were TSI or anyone going to do about it? Stop them attending board meetings? Not give them any "information" in the future - I know it's easy for people like me to say - but STAR are representative of all fans of this club and should be making a lot more noise about this imo.

I think it was more a case of keeping quiet so as not to scare prospective buyers away or to jeopardise club dealings - you wouldn't want to sell a player to a club if there was a risk of them defaulting on the payments.

[Royal Lady]

STAR should have ignored requests to keep quiet and kept pushing imo. What were TSI or anyone going to do about it? Stop them attending board meetings? Not give them any "information" in the future - I know it's easy for people like me to say - but STAR are representative of all fans of this club and should be making a lot more noise about this imo.

I think it was more a case of keeping quiet so as not to scare prospective buyers away or to jeopardise club dealings - you wouldn't want to sell a player to a club if there was a risk of them defaulting on the payments.

What players - I didn't think we signed anyone on a permanent contract in January?

[Pat Butchers Ring]

Listen, I'm critical of STAR as I believe that when a firm voice on behalf of fans needs to be voiced the organisations silence is deafening.

However, I now realise that the group are given access to privileged information that may be sensitive if given to a wider audience in the wrong context. We as fans need a group trusted by the club.



So I believe there needs to be a separate organisation that is prepared to play 'bad cop' that star can distance themselves from but that can Let the club know of things we as fans aren't happy of.

I would like to get star liaisons thoughts on this and am keen to stress that this type of organisation shouldn't be seen as a threat to board members wishing to better their CVs .

Royal Lady - you are vocal how about your thoughts.

[Royal Biscuitman]

STAR should have ignored requests to keep quiet and kept pushing imo. What were TSI or anyone going to do about it? Stop them attending board meetings? Not give them any "information" in the future - I know it's easy for people like me to say - but STAR are representative of all fans of this club and should be making a lot more noise about this imo.

I think it was more a case of keeping quiet so as not to scare prospective buyers away or to jeopardise club dealings - you wouldn't want to sell a player to a club if there was a risk of them defaulting on the payments.

What players - I didn't think we signed anyone on a permanent contract in January?

Doesn't mean we didn't try.

[Green]

Listen, I'm critical of STAR as I believe that when a firm voice on behalf of fans needs to be voiced the organisations silence is deafening.

However, I now realise that the group are given access to privileged information that may be sensitive if given to a wider audience in the wrong context. We as fans need a group trusted by the club.



So I believe there needs to be a separate organisation that is prepared to play 'bad cop' that star can distance themselves from but that can Let the club know of things we as fans aren't happy of.

I would like to get star liaisons thoughts on this and am keen to stress that this type of organisation shouldn't be seen as a threat to board members wishing to better their CVs .

Royal Lady - you are vocal how about your thoughts.

+1 for the need for a militant version of STAR.

The IRA to STAR's Sinn Féin.

[STAR Liaison]

Listen, I'm critical of STAR as I believe that when a firm voice on behalf of fans needs to be voiced the organisations silence is deafening.

However, I now realise that the group are given access to privileged information that may be sensitive if given to a wider audience in the wrong context. We as fans need a group trusted by the club.

So I believe there needs to be a separate organisation that is prepared to play 'bad cop' that star can distance themselves from but that can Let the club know of things we as fans aren't happy of.

I would like to get star liaisons thoughts on this and am keen to stress that this type of organisation shouldn't be seen as a threat to board members wishing to better their CVs .

I appreciate your new understanding of the difficulties we sometimes face.

In fairness we DO tell the club about issues fans are not happy with. And plenty of fans tell the club directly anyway. And we do campaign on bigger policy issues. What we don't convey - certainly publicly - is anger and passion and people like you think we should do that more. Less Sven, more Warnock. I get it. But would you want a Warnock-type as the British ambassador to China?

So STAR will be putting out to tender the opportunity to hold "the bad cop" fans franchise. We expect multi-pound bids from The Scorpions and The Thames Train Crew. Alright, seriously, what you're describing sounds much more like a fanzine than an organisation. Now The Whiff's been de-odourised there's an opportunity there.

Alternatively - and this is a personal view - STAR could set up some kind of on-polling mechanism on contentious issues and communicate - without necessarily endorsing - the results of fans views. The fans (rather than or as well as STAR Board) could determine the issues to be polled.

[SydenhamRoyal]

Listen, I'm critical of STAR as I believe that when a firm voice on behalf of fans needs to be voiced the organisations silence is deafening.

However, I now realise that the group are given access to privileged information that may be sensitive if given to a wider audience in the wrong context. We as fans need a group trusted by the club.

So I believe there needs to be a separate organisation that is prepared to play 'bad cop' that star can distance themselves from but that can Let the club know of things we as fans aren't happy of.

I would like to get star liaisons thoughts on this and am keen to stress that this type of organisation shouldn't be seen as a threat to board members wishing to better their CVs .

Not a bad idea, but I suspect the results of any polling would be skewed to the unrepresentative vocal minority

I appreciate your new understanding of the difficulties we sometimes face.

In fairness we DO tell the club about issues fans are not happy with. And plenty of fans tell the club directly anyway. And we do campaign on bigger policy issues. What we don't convey - certainly publicly - is anger and passion and people like you think we should do that more. Less Sven, more Warnock. I get it. But would you want a Warnock-type as the British ambassador to China?

So STAR will be putting out to tender the opportunity to hold "the bad cop" fans franchise. We expect multi-pound bids from The Scorpions and The Thames Train Crew. Alright, seriously, what you're describing sounds much more like a fanzine than an organisation. Now The Whiff's been de-odourised there's an opportunity there.

Alternatively - and this is a personal view - STAR could set up some kind of on-polling mechanism on contentious issues and communicate - without necessarily endorsing - the results of fans views. The fans (rather than or as well as STAR Board) could determine the issues to be polled.

[westendgirl]

http://www.exetercityfc.co.uk/news/arti ... 82825.aspx

An interesting read, especially the last paragraph - So how should it feel being a supporter of a fan owned club?

[Royal Biscuitman]

STAR have little power in the club, yes they own some shares which gives them the same rights as any other shareholder, however as is the case with all companies the majority vote goes and STAR do not own enough shares to make a difference.

STAR could/should look to instead build their powerbase up amongst the fans and sponsors - customers of the club. If STAR were more like a trade union calling for fans to strike or work to rule (go to games, spend not one penny more on anything else) then that would be power... although with tv revenue being as large as it is, even ten fan power may not be enough.

[STAR Liaison]

http://www.exetercityfc.co.uk/news/article/on-being-a-supporter-owned-club-1582825.aspx

An interesting read, especially the last paragraph - So how should it feel being a supporter of a fan owned club?

Thanks for bringing this to attention. All admirable stuff.
However last time I looked at Exeter City fan sites (3 months ago?) all was not sweetness and light between the Club and Trust boards.

[Green]

http://www.exetercityfc.co.uk/news/article/on-being-a-supporter-owned-club-1582825.aspx

An interesting read, especially the last paragraph - So how should it feel being a supporter of a fan owned club?

Thanks for bringing this to attention. All admirable stuff.
However last time I looked at Exeter City fan sites (3 months ago?) all was not sweetness and light between the Club and Trust boards.

+1 - it's an interesting read.

But all ultimately a moot point. Unless you somehow accept the premise that fans get exponentially richer as you progress up the football league pyramid then it's not really scalable, and even at our fairly modest level we're beyond the fan buyout point really - even all the IT consultants in Bracknell aren't gonna change that.

[STAR Liaison]

STAR could/should look to instead build their powerbase up amongst the fans and sponsors - customers of the club. If STAR were more like a trade union calling for fans to strike or work to rule (go to games, spend not one penny more on anything else) then that would be power... although with tv revenue being as large as it is, even ten fan power may not be enough.

Too right. But what would your demands be?

I have vague memories of STAR trying to encourage a boycott of our away game at Wimbledon after the controversial and disgusting MK Dons decision was still hot news in about 2003. I have a feeling the game was played at Selhurst (I didn't go) and my impression was that the boycott was a failure because a lot more of our fans wanted their afternoon's entertainment than wanting to make an important political point. It would be helpful if someone who has a better memory of this would kindly fill in some details.

People like yourself who take the trouble to post on HNA might be surprised / stunned by the proportion of fans who really don't care about wider issues and just see football as entertainment without consequences. And sometimes I wish I still did!

[Royal Biscuitman]

STAR could/should look to instead build their powerbase up amongst the fans and sponsors - customers of the club. If STAR were more like a trade union calling for fans to strike or work to rule (go to games, spend not one penny more on anything else) then that would be power... although with tv revenue being as large as it is, even ten fan power may not be enough.

Too right. But what would your demands be?

I have vague memories of STAR trying to encourage a boycott of our away game at Wimbledon after the controversial and disgusting MK Dons decision was still hot news in about 2003. I have a feeling the game was played at Selhurst (I didn't go) and my impression was that the boycott was a failure because a lot more of our fans wanted their afternoon's entertainment than wanting to make an important political point. It would be helpful if someone who has a better memory of this would kindly fill in some details.

People like yourself who take the trouble to post on HNA might be surprised / stunned by the proportion of fans who really don't care about wider issues and just see football as entertainment without consequences. And sometimes I wish I still did!

This is the problem and it's one that should be highlighted, however you also have a group who do actually care but do nothing about it, much like those who complain about their local MP and yet didn't make the effort to vote their selves..... even people some of the fans who complain vocally about the home shirts not having proper hoops tend not to help their own cause because they still buy it.

The point I was making (for the benefit of those who don't get it, not STAR, who clearly do) is that STAR can never have a relationship with the club on it's own terms - If it kicks up a fuss, it gets kicked out and since it holds no power it can't even do anything to force the club to reinstate them.

The efforts of STAR should be focussed on building stronger and wider relationships with the fans, In part I think demonstrating that there is a plan in place to save the club in the event of administration or working with the FA/league to get protection on things like home kit design remaining traditional blue/white hoops (not changed like Cardiff), club name remaining Reading FC (not changed to the Reading Lions, based in Reading and that kind of thing.