What the hell do they know about running a football club?
During the darker final days of Andy Sinton’s doomed reign as boss, and after a particularly damaging home defeat, a current board member once asked me “Fucking hell Mike, have we just spent the last ten years recreating the old Telford United?”. It’s an interesting question, and it’s possibly one we should be asking ourselves more often.
The “old Telford United” in this analogy relates to a specific example, but it could be any old generic model of poor football practice. Run by a cabal of local businessmen, until it was bought out and ultimately imploded by a slightly less local and greatly more maniacal and egocentric businessman, the old club was everything the new one aspires not to be. Bureaucratic, autocratic and introverted, they stumbled along with no particular ambition or general principles, doing the same things that everyone else did and wondering why it made no headway. The idea that fans could have a say in the running of club would have been preposterous to the people who ran the old club. What the hell do they know about running a football club?
It was this backdrop which which spawned the “new” Telford United with the promise that things would be better, and for a time it definitely was. Don’t like the badge? Change it! Tickets too expensive? Change it! We’re producing a new replica kit every season and it’s a massive rip off, let’s stop doing that, eh? etcetera.
“Well, do you want a successful club or not?”
In my opinion, this week’s announcement on season ticket prices was a measure of how far away from those early days we are now. A press release delivered from boardroom level to the fans following a series of closed door meetings was met with some ire from commentators on social media, and the (admittedly non scientific) sample of responses I saw from the club and trust boards were along the lines of “We've done our best to be reasonable to fans whilst giving us the best possible chance of moving the club forward”, and in one case “Well, do you want a successful club or not?”. The message behind both the process and these responses, whilst probably unintentional, seems clear. We know what we’re doing, leave it to us. What the hell do they know about running a football club?
I took a particular interest in this process as I felt it was a good yardstick, and here’s what I found. I would also add the disclaimer that I am an accredited member of the media, and when I'm working on a match day I do not pay for admission, however I am a member of the supporters trust. With that in mind, the following three paragraphs may sound like I'm bashing the club and the people that are running it — I'm not, I know how hard everyone works and their efforts are heroic, but the process is broken and it needs to be addressed if we are to move forward together.
Prior to the announcement made this week I asked for a copy of the report which the football club produced when making it’s recommendation to the trust on ticket prices for next season. I received a number of responses from both trust and club boards telling me they would see what they could do. Ok, good.
The eventual response was that I could see the report, but only after the announcement had been made. Boom! And there it is. In my opinion, this is exactly where the problem lies. Rather than asking me, a fan and an owner, for opinions and analysis on what a fair ticket pricing policy is, they've told me, and then told me why it’s fair. By announcing the price with a press release, the club have asked me a closed question when they could have asked me an open one. “This is our price, do you want to pay it or what?”.
Had they asked “What do you think is a fair price to pay?” or even “Well, we've done some analysis and these are the options, what do you reckon?” they’d have gained my feedback, and possibly some more valuable insight into why I would or wouldn't want to pay it. I might even have come up with a fresh way of thinking about it, I have ideas too! Either way, I would be invested in the process at this point, I would have part ownership of the decision, and whilst I may not agree with the eventual outcome, I would feel like I’d participated in a democratic and open process to arrive at a decision which is for the benefit of everyone. For the big decisions, putting it back to the trust board is insufficient. On match days, we all play, as the saying goes.
I appreciate that the club is not always able to consult everyone on everything, but it’s become too easy to dismiss the club’s members as irritating dissenters who are distracting the people who really know what they’re doing from running the club, and this has led to the current fractious relationship between the club and it’s members. Having done some of these jobs myself, I know how hard it is not to think this way; there are a range of opinions put forward and some of them are more practical than others.
“As a fans club we are the antithesis of professionalism, and this is a good thing”
You can measure “professional” football clubs by the usual means — league position, attendances, bank balances, etc. There are a bunch of metrics developed by learned academics for this. But we are not a traditionally modelled professional club, as a fans club we are the antithesis of professionalism and this is a good thing, but it means we are measured not by those “professional” barometers but by something different; our levels of activism. What are we doing? How much can we do? Is everyone involved and working towards making it better?
In the pursuit of so called professionalism the club has moved too far away from it’s core values of active inclusiveness and transparency, and it’s set the club on a downward spiral of apathy which may be hard to reverse.
We are the owners, it’s our job to speak up when something isn't right, and it’s up to us as individuals who care deeply about the club to halt this process or it will end where it started — with the old Telford United. And I think we’re better than that.
