[Albion] Is it time to restart BISA or something similar?

attila · Jan 10, 2019

On the field things are going absolutely brilliantly, I think everyone will agree about that. Off the field we are treated like 'customers' and since the 'war years' ended have had no collective representation as supporters in the face of the negative aspects of the modern football experience discussed in many threads on here.
Many will say: no need, things have moved on, and the club won't listen anyway: no need, they know 95% of us won't walk away and there is a big waiting list ready to snap up the tickts of the 5% who do.
I actually think the revival of an organised supporters' group would be listened to by the club for all kinds of reasons, historical and actual, and it might make things easier for all concerned.
If it does happen it should be the new generation who take it forward: we old gits have done our bit.
We have a proud history of democratic relations with the club, not the top-down approach currently favoured ( an annual online fan survey and annual fans' forum doesn't really compare with our previous relationship does it?)
What do you think?

Commander · Jan 10, 2019

It's not a bad idea by I'm not really sure what it's going to achieve. I can't see how any organisation like this would have any kind of power these days.

Moshe Gariani · Jan 10, 2019

attila said:
On the field things are going absolutely brilliantly, I think everyone will agree about that. Off the field we are treated like 'customers' and since the 'war years' ended have had no collective representation as supporters in the face of the negative aspects of the modern football experience discussed in many threads on here.
Many will say: no need, things have moved on, and the club won't listen anyway: no need, they know 95% of us won't walk away and there is a big waiting list ready to snap up the tickts of the 5% who do.
I actually think the revival of an organised supporters' group would be listened to by the club for all kinds of reasons, historical and actual, and it might make things easier for all concerned.
If it does happen it should be the new generation who take it forward: we old gits have done our bit.
We have a proud history of democratic relations with the club, not the top-down approach currently favoured ( an annual online fan survey and annual fans' forum doesn't really compare with our previous relationship does it?)
What do you think?

I think you're right about the benefits of a supporters group that has regular communication and meetings with the club.

There isn't much wrong with the content of what comes out of the club but the tone of communication at the moment is all wrong.

Face to face meetings with the supporters reps feeding back on here and the various other social media would be a significant help.

Goldstone1976 · Jan 10, 2019

attila said:
On the field things are going absolutely brilliantly, I think everyone will agree about that. Off the field we are treated like 'customers' and since the 'war years' ended have had no collective representation as supporters in the face of the negative aspects of the modern football experience discussed in many threads on here.
Many will say: no need, things have moved on, and the club won't listen anyway: no need, they know 95% of us won't walk away and there is a big waiting list ready to snap up the tickts of the 5% who do.
I actually think the revival of an organised supporters' group would be listened to by the club for all kinds of reasons, historical and actual, and it might make things easier for all concerned.
If it does happen it should be the new generation who take it forward: we old gits have done our bit.
We have a proud history of democratic relations with the club, not the top-down approach currently favoured ( an annual online fan survey and annual fans' forum doesn't really compare with our previous relationship does it?)
What do you think?

If you want to encourage the “new generation” to take the reins rather than “we old gits”, you might do better to use a medium that they read? Twitter, Instagram, even (still) FB would be better channels to reach that demographic.

Greavsey · Jan 10, 2019

Moshe Gariani said:
I think you're right about the benefits of a supporters group that has regular communication and meetings with the club.

There isn't much wrong with the content of what comes out of the club but the tone of communication at the moment is all wrong.

Face to face meetings with the supporters reps reporting back on here and the various other social media would be a significant help.

I'm interested, can you provide any examples of where you think this is the case?
thanks

Moshe Gariani · Jan 10, 2019

Greavsey said:
I'm interested, can you provide any examples of where you think this is the case?
thanks

It is obviously a personal view but seems to be shared by many on here that the tone is often overly corporate and dictatorial. My preferred tone would involve much more emphasis on the friendly relationship and mutual appreciation between 99.5% of fans and the club.

Me and my Monkey · Jan 10, 2019

I think I’m getting a bit bored with all the incessant moaning about frankly trivial matters and imagined slights.

hans kraay fan club · Jan 10, 2019

attila said:
We have a proud history of democratic relations with the club, not the top-down approach currently favoured ( an annual online fan survey and annual fans' forum doesn't really compare with our previous relationship does it?)
What do you think?

I think that we have a CEO who will personally respond (at length) to every e-mail he receives from individual fans.
A chairman who sits and shares a can of Stella with random fans, on the train back from away matches.
Club representatives made available not just for the one annual forum you mention, but also disparate supporters' groups (Seagulls over London, Seagulls over Burwash ffs!).

If anything 'access' to 'the club' for each individual fan, is greater now than it has ever been.

Greavsey · Jan 10, 2019

Moshe Gariani said:
It is obviously a personal view but seems to be shared by many on here that the tone is overly corporate and dictatorial. My preferred tone would involve much more emphasis on the friendly relationship and mutual appreciation between 99.5% of fans and the club.

I don't disagree, but also think legally the latest raft have had to be pretty formal black and white communications by their nature.

Bottle tops and flasks seems to be a bigger issue than perhaps the club anticipated. I wonder is this what is driving Atilla's question/agenda, or is there something deeper?

Simster · Jan 10, 2019

hans kraay fan club said:
I think that we have a CEO who will personally respond (at length) to every e-mail he receives from individual fans.
A chairman who sits and shares a can of Stella with random fans, on the train back from away matches.
Club representatives made available not just for the one annual forum you mention, but also disparate supporters' groups (Seagulls over London, Seagulls over Burwash ffs!).

If anything 'access' to 'the club' for each individual fan, is greater now than it has ever been.

All true, we've been extremely lucky with ownership for 2 decades now, but [MENTION=528]attila[/MENTION]'s is still a good idea. Whoever owns the club at any time should always be acutely aware that there is more to the club than mere ownership. It's all about the community and supporters.

However, if a new BISA only ever ended up whinging loudly about flasks then we'd quickly wonder what the point of it ever was.

Napper · Jan 10, 2019

Be a good idea but think we're too big for anyone to listen.

We have a guy top level who is mainly interesting in profit margins . The voice of the fan wouldn't be heard as isn't a fan themselves.

Have to be careful what say but he wouldn't listen .

Springal · Jan 10, 2019

Napper said:
Be a good idea but think we're too big for anyone to listen.

We have a guy top level who is mainly interesting in profit margins . The voice of the fan wouldn't be heard as isn't a fan themselves.

Have to be careful what say but he wouldn't listen .

You do realise the top level guy receives his direction from the board & chairman? He isn't just on some made rampage off his own back. He is just doing what Tony Bloom wants him. The blinkered good Bloom / bad Barber views on here are incredible.

n1 gull · Jan 10, 2019

Mustafa said:
It's a great thought, but football has changed. Brighton & Hove Albion has changed.

Fans are no longer relevant and no longer have any influence over how top football club's are run.

Sad, but true. I've made peace with it, and now enjoying football for different reasons than what I did 10 years ago.

This 100% !!

BNthree · Jan 10, 2019

Springal said:
You do realise the top level guy receives his direction from the board & chairman? He isn't just on some made rampage off his own back. He is just doing what Tony Bloom wants him. The blinkered good Bloom / bad Barber views on here are incredible.

Indeed Barber is employed to do a job. If the Chair and Board weren't happy with how he was doing his job he'd get the elbow.

Tim Over Whelmed · Jan 10, 2019

Football is now a part of consumerism, the customer counts but only in terms of a strong P & L, the days of worrying about gates and fans went when a TV audience the other side of the World matters more and brings in a large part of the £4bn from TV.

Nobby · Jan 10, 2019

I’m not sure if we need it
Yet.....

But

A message from a mate of mine who I was talking to about the tone of the latest announcements (he was in training)

“the last few years I was at xx we worked hard on helping people to write seriously without becoming officious. The common pushback was that people felt they had to be professional. But when you did a bit of digging you could virtually always replace professional with formal. And when you get very formal you get officious - which really winds people up the wrong way. The Uber formal language used in these announcements (we are reminding supporters, prohibited, ignore stadium rules, liable to ejection, last warnings, etc, etc) has succeeded superbly in creating an us and you stand off. All they had to do was start the statement with ‘we know this is going to be a nuisance, sorry. But we think we have to do this because...’

My view is the club needs to be aware that 99% of supporters wouldn’t dream of behaving poorly, but personalised emails from the club insinuates that we’re all at it. The tone and language needs to be addressed.

attila · Jan 10, 2019

Certainly not flask or bottle top driven, no agenda at all, and I am very much aware of the demographic on here....the discussion goes on face to face at games as well.
I am just sounding opinion a bit. Whatever happens, if anything does, I shall just be watching lovely football and drinking my Harveys (hopefully simultaneously sometime soon)
I won't be involved at all, my campaigning and meetings days are over.

el punal · Jan 10, 2019

Moshe Gariani said:
I think you're right about the benefits of a supporters group that has regular communication and meetings with the club.

There isn't much wrong with the content of what comes out of the club but the tone of communication at the moment is all wrong.

Face to face meetings with the supporters reps feeding back on here and the various other social media would be a significant help.

Without taking sides here but don’t Tony Bloom and Paul Barber regularly attend fans forums to explain and answer questions regarding the club and their role with supporters?

Tim Over Whelmed · Jan 10, 2019

Springal said:
You do realise the top level guy receives his direction from the board & chairman? He isn't just on some made rampage off his own back. He is just doing what Tony Bloom wants him. The blinkered good Bloom / bad Barber views on here are incredible.

Completely agree, Barber is one of the most sought after people in football, he's done a great job and has the full backing of The Board and, I'd imagine, is fully executing the Business Plan that has been built, debated and signed off by the Board.

Tim Over Whelmed · Jan 10, 2019

attila said:
Certainly not flask or bottle top driven, no agenda at all, and I am very much aware of the demographic on here....the discussion goes on face to face at games as well.
I am just sounding opinion a bit. Whatever happens, if anything does, I shall just be watching lovely football and drinking my Harveys (hopefully simultaneously sometime soon)
I won't be involved at all, my campaigning and meetings days are over.

If you read some of the comments on here you'd think that they sit in an Ivory Tower and ask themselves "how can we p1ss people off today", they don't.

PB has a responsibility to The Board and Shareholders to protect the share price, it's that simple and forms a part of UK Company Law

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[Albion] Is it time to restart BISA or something similar?

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