Pitch Invasion at Old Trafford

tunstallhill said:
It wasn't aimed at you . Just a general observation


I don't mean young as in 20 year old. I mean someone in the 30-50 bracket who would have a better chance of understanding the complexities of differing views of all fans


Aye agree, if it was the right person, the right members of the trust and the right club, it could be a very progressive and mutually beneficial relationship.

A worry would be the that whatever was happening on the pitch , short term, as it what form the team is currently in, may cloud judgement when it comes to thinking over long term issues
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My own feeling is that few supporters under 40 would have the requisite business experience.
tunstallhill said:
It wasn't aimed at you . Just a general observation


I don't mean young as in 20 year old. I mean someone in the 30-50 bracket who would have a better chance of understanding the complexities of differing views of all fans


Aye agree, if it was the right person, the right members of the trust and the right club, it could be a very progressive and mutually beneficial relationship.

A worry would be the that whatever was happening on the pitch , short term, as it what form the team is currently in, may cloud judgement when it comes to thinking over long term issues
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Agree 100% here. A non-exec is a strategic appointment, and can't be too influenced by short-term events, unless that is indicative of a failing strategy.
 
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tunstallhill said:
your changing what you said. i said that 'chavs who slash coppers faces' wouldn't get voted in, and you said that 'they would make up the majority of the voting base'

why dont you fuck off away from this forum if thats what you think the majority of sunderland fans are


that would be my worry. someone who the likes of methven would have wrapped around his little finger by complementing him on his shoes and buying him a cheap pint and calling him 'mate'.

or, some old fart who wouldn't campaign for safe standing areas or cheaper tickets because it didnt effect them. the type of die hard old codger who has served his time following sunderland, but isnt able to embrace progressiveness. it would have to be someone youngish, who isn't impressed by expensive watches and fancy english accents.
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😂😂😂😂 get a grip lad
Dilligaf60 said:
Yet you seemed quite sure
“99% of Sunderland fans would have voted Ellis short out for Stewart Donald in 2018. That went well.”
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They would have, based on all available evidence. As I said he was very popular here early on, until everyone seen what a joke he was
 
Grumpy Old Man said:
Why does it always have to be challenging the owners? Boards simply don't function if the members are constantly at loggerheads. The aim must surely be to put fan views on a regular basis well before that stage is reached, You're letting your judgement be clouded by our recent history, and assuming the worst of KLD with no real evidence to support that view. You only have to look at the minutes of the last fan meeting to see that the mood music has completely changed. Yes, bad decisions need to be challenged, and RAWA has consistently done that where needed. Fan representation, crucially, allows those objections to be made before a decision is reached.

While you could in theory, vote an investor off the board, what would that actually achieve? Who would replace them? The German model evolved, in the main, from sports clubs, where the board/management committee is elected by the members. That doesn't translate easily into a UK limited company structure, which is too embedded to be changed without a domino collapse of the whole edifice. In most businesses, anyone owning more than 25% of a company will expect some kind of board representation, given the size of their stake in the business.
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I never mentioned KLD. I said supporter representation is a good idea but club boards will hand pick who they want on them (not all clubs would do that of course). People like Donald and Methven never liked being questioned and their idea of fan engagement was to butter us up while assets stripping the club. They used the fan groups. I think KLD would be the opposite and act more professional. When fans raised concerns about youth players being sold off to raise cash to run the club posters on here said it was greedy parents. When we raised concerns about the £10m poster like you shot us down. It turns out all our concerns about Donald were true despite poster on here saying we had an agenda. That's why clubs need someone who would raise our concerns to the board and let them the general feeling among supporters and yes challenge them on issues like that. We know from Donald that some owners wouldn't like that and would go to great lengths to keep control and cover up. Even make up stories.

Also, I've said throughout these thread that 50+1 won't work in England. But that doesn't mean it's a bad idea.
 
sportwitness.co.uk

Know your place - Manchester United's mere supporters should be put back in their hole... or maybe not - Sport Witness

Thugs, criminals, louts, uneducated, feral, embarrassing. That’s what the Manchester United supporters who protested on Sunday were. Well, at least if you listen to much of the narrative. Sure, there’s the explanation that they may have a point, however, it’s so much easier to go on the attack...
sportwitness.co.uk sportwitness.co.uk

Know your place – Manchester United’s mere supporters should be put back in their hole… or maybe not
​

Thugs, criminals, louts, uneducated, feral, embarrassing.

That’s what the Manchester United supporters who protested on Sunday were. Well, at least if you listen to much of the narrative.

Sure, there’s the explanation that they may have a point, however, it’s so much easier to go on the attack at the very small minority who resorted to violence and focus on that, than deal with the much more complex wider issue.

We are now two weeks away from when the European Super League was announced. It was the worst of times, but also the best of times as fans from clubs involved revolted at the idea.

Unity which is rarely experienced took over the game and fans made their voice heard. Chelsea supporters flocked to the ground to show their feelings, and not long afterwards it was announced the Blues had scrapped any commitment to being involved.

Those who had been outside Stamford Bridge celebrated it like a title win, because they felt they had been heard.

Arsenal fans soon followed, in great numbers, and their efforts were roundly applauded.

The ESL died, and for many that was it. Move on.

Jurgen Klopp appealed for people to “calm down”. Almost any other person alive could have said this and Liverpool fans would have destroyed them, although not the German manager who has so cloaked himself in the mystique of his club.

That felt like a nail in the coffin. Klopp was always going to take many Liverpool fans with him, and whilst he didn’t take them all, with many supporters of the club, including great contributions from The Anfield Wrap still keeping the fire burning, he took enough.

Protest became partisan again. No longer was it US V THEM. Fans of others outside the ESL clubs rolled around in thrill of points deductions and explained why their clubs, and their support, displayed a greater sense of ‘real football’ than any of those higher up the perceived food chain.

Glory hunters, that was the theme. Fans of clubs like Manchester United and Arsenal simply couldn’t handle that they were no longer at the very top of the tree, and much afterwards was seen through such a prism.

So the planned protest at Old Trafford came, and despite many (including people not too far from here) thinking it would be somewhat diluted, it was the most impactful of the lot.

Gathered outside Old Trafford, and The Lowry Hotel, were supporters who had been pushed too far. ESL may not have been the main reason yet it was certainly the ignition, and those Manchester United fans have since been let down by many.

Some will say they were let down most by those among them who broke eggs to make an omelette. Those who, as almost always in any protest about pretty much everything, go a little further than others.

The pearl-clutching at seeing actual football fans on a club’s actual football pitch was a little too much. They, in some ways, repossessed their ground and the images have gone across the world.

How dare football fans, who are everything that club, and any club, ever was, take to the sacred surface they and their families have spent decades cherishing.

You see, protests are all well and good until someone rocks the boat, but protests are generally completely useless until someone rocks the boat. The idea is to make those in charge feel uncomfortable and whilst violence can never be condoned, is the general idea of taking the pitch now so controversial that it leads to some of the reactions we’ve seen?

Pat Nevin, a pundit who will want you all to know he has a great record collection and is so socially aware he felt like an alien going into professional football, spent over an hour on Saturday slamming the protestors.

This man of the people was aghast at the people having their voice heard. His reactions became so increasingly absurd and increasingly exaggerated that if the BBC had allowed him an extra hour he’d have been talking about Roy Keane being potentially decapitated by a flare.

And then we have Jermaine Jenas, who explained during BBC 5Live’s coverage that he didn’t really know what the protest was all about and needed educating. He had a good chunk of time and all of his resources, and those of the BBC, to change that. Jenas had enough opportunity to cure his ignorance before his appearance on MOTD2, yet chose not to.

Wallowing in his own lack of understanding because it was slightly easier.

We should expect better.

Manchester United fans, at least the ones protesting, aren’t angry because they’re not signing Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland. This isn’t about a lack of relative success, protests were happening when the club was so deep in success the bubbles were rolling over the bathtub.

The Glazer family bought the club via loans and then leveraged that against the club, meaning huge debt interest repayments which impacted any actual progress on or off the pitch.

Presumably well aware of the controversy of what they’d done, communication with fans became non existent.

Old Trafford should right now be one of the very best sport stadiums in the world, yet it’s hard to argue it’s even in the top 20. Ask fans who were at the protest if they’d take relegation as a route to get the Glazers away and you’d find it hard to locate any who wouldn’t.

Because what you have here is real football. Real football fans who won’t care about your Sunday afternoon viewing being disrupted. Who wouldn’t be too concerned about points deductions, and who don’t care what YOUR club is doing right now, because this is THEIR club.

They want it back. They don’t want some billionaire to arrive and turn them into a new United Disney. Yes, they support a huge club and have experienced success, but it’s still their club, passed to them the same way as, say, Newcastle United is passed through generations.

You may be annoyed with the gobby kid in your class, hundreds or thousands of miles away from Old Trafford, who marked your childhood by gloating about the treble. Does that mark the rest of the club’s support? No.

It is clearly in the interest of some clubs, one of which is very local, that Manchester United isn’t allowed to use its full potential. That they don’t just have owners who won’t put money in, but have owners who drain it out via an everlasting drip to Florida, is quite appetising for opponents.

That on one level is just football support, schadenfreude will forever be vital. On another it’s betraying everything football is really about.

So the next time, and it’s already being planned, Manchester United supporters try to defend their club from those who see it as nothing more than a source of endless cash, and huge amounts of such, have some empathy.

Otherwise, we can join the rest of right-wing society in rubbishing any protest, and using the worst examples of such, to keep those who need a voice quiet.

People in working class communities used to say ‘know your place’ as they rolled their eyes at how they were looked down on. This is very much one of those occasions, and take sides as you wish.
 
Black Cat Gypsy said:
I never mentioned KLD. I said supporter representation is a good idea but club boards will hand pick who they want on them (not all clubs would do that of course). People like Donald and Methven never liked being questioned and their idea of fan engagement was to butter us up while assets stripping the club. They used the fan groups. I think KLD would be the opposite and act more professional. When fans raised concerns about youth players being sold off to raise cash to run the club posters on here said it was greedy parents. When we raised concerns about the £10m poster like you shot us down. It turns out all our concerns about Donald were true despite poster on here saying we had an agenda. That's why clubs need someone who would raise our concerns to the board and let them the general feeling among supporters and yes challenge them on issues like that. We know from Donald that some owners wouldn't like that and would go to great lengths to keep control and cover up. Even make up stories.

Also, I've said throughout these thread that 50+1 won't work in England. But that doesn't mean it's a bad idea.
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As I understand it, any fans representative will be chosen by a supporters' trust (in our case, RAWA), and the club will have no veto on that appointment.
 
Grumpy Old Man said:
I doubt the South Stand is too much different to the Fulwell End in the 70's. Well, maybe quieter ;)
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of course not, but would the old timers in the main stand seats in the 70s give a hoot what the lads at the back of the fulwell were thinking about safc?
TravellingMackem said:
😂😂😂😂 get a grip lad
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get a grip of what? i'm just quoting what you said. why don't you retract it? or acknowledge it and stand by it?
 
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tunstallhill said:
of course not, but would the old timers in the main stand seats in the 70s give a hoot what the lads at the back of the fulwell were thinking about safc?


get a grip of what? i'm just quoting what you said. why don't you retract it? or acknowledge it and stand by it?
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I think any of them willing to go on the board of the club would. The vast majority wouldn't, of course. I could stand the argument on its head, and ask whether the the average South Stander cares a jot about about the concerns of older fans. However, there will be a minority in both groups who can see both worlds. In the 70's, the attitudes of a 20 year old and a sixty year old were like being on different planets. Nowadays, it's not so marked.

The trick is to find an individual who combines the experience to be an effective board member with the ability to see multiple concerns at the same time. They will be out there, and hopefully they'll be the ones most likely to put themselves forward. For what it's worth, I can think straight away of two members of the RAWA committee who would fit the bill.
 
Grumpy Old Man said:
I think any of them willing to go on the board of the club would. The vast majority wouldn't, of course. I could stand the argument on its head, and ask whether the the average South Stander cares a jot about about the concerns of older fans. However, there will be a minority in both groups who can see both worlds. In the 70's, the attitudes of a 20 year old and a sixty year old were like being on different planets. Nowadays, it's not so marked.

The trick is to find an individual who combines the experience to be an effective board member with the ability to see multiple concerns at the same time. They will be out there, and hopefully they'll be the ones most likely to put themselves forward. For what it's worth, I can think straight away of two members of the RAWA committee who would fit the bill.
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if and when the time comes, how will they go about canvassing? will it be a short video or written blog putting their points across? or an in-person q&a ?

i hope they dont fall into the trap of waffling on about their history as sunderland fan for too long
TravellingMackem said:
Don’t have a meltdown lad. Calm down
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aren't you embarrassed by the way your going on?
 
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tunstallhill said:
if and when the time comes, how will they go about canvassing? will it be a short video or written blog putting their points across? or an in-person q&a ?

i hope they dont fall into the trap of waffling on about their history as sunderland fan for too long


aren't you embarrassed by the way your going on?
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Thankfully, that's RAWA's problem, not mine :)
 

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