Protest Groups....

No reason why you could not create a Poll to gauge the interest. Have a long think as how you want to word the options. No reason why you couldn’t post them on here before you add them to the thread.

 

This idea that 'our club is unique' is such a falsehood. There are more things similar between all fans of all clubs than there is that's different about them. Even if in the cases wherein reality situations are different its often not the case in the fans heads. The United fans fears for what finishing out of the top4 meant when coupled with the overall Glazer situation was to them just as serious as you feel the situation at City is. As we see on this very forum when things are bad it's very easy for situations to be amplified either intentionally or unintentionally. (for example, the sudden idea the club was about to go bankrupt due to cash flow issues simply based on one report the club were chasing up debtors to settle up now rather than what they claimed was normal of around March).

And the thing is if this had only happened at United then fine you could argue 'Maybe its different' but these flyovers have been done countless times all with the same outcome. The ones you were aware of you were probably sitting on C&B making comments about what twats it made all those clubs fans look and how disrupting a game like that was a classless way of protesting

 

But you donated right? Were you saying the same when other clubs did it?

 

The thing is though it's not about 'do fans agree with the message'. A large majority of United fans over the years wanted the Glazers out, wanted Moyes out, wanted Ed out etc but its usually the method of putting that message over that's the issue. Actions need to be things that the majority can get behind, that means

• It seeming like a long-term and potentially successful action (The flyover is very short term as in a few minutes, has been shown by every club's fans who have done it to be ineffective)
• Doesn't impact the players (A flyover does as it draws attention away from the game and kills the atmosphere before and after it happens. Same with protests or boycotts. )
• Doesn't negatively impact the club long-term (While some may be happy sending the club into administration and potentially into having to start again from scratch by cutting of revenue most won't)
• And many will want an 'exit' in place. (What use it getting in a situation like Newcastle where the fans 'won' a long time ago but Ashley can't find a buyer. Or a situation where a buyer is available but is no better or worse. When everyone at United was getting behind the Red Knights they did so without hearing their plans. When they announced them the 70 rich United fans behind it announced that they would be keeping the current loans, would be adding new loans on top and intended to pay themselves dividends which the Glazers weren't doing at the time. If it had happened we might have had the club in the hands of fans but servicing the debt would have been significantly more and significant dividends would have been being paid so it wasn't a better option which is why support quickly turned despite MUST trying to push it due to being offered a golden share - a golden share for those who don't know is a share that allows the holder to block any sale. In the EFL the EFL themselves have a golden share in all clubs so if there was a buyer for City they could actually block it if they didn't think the financials and plans were right)

When you have small half-baked ideas of protest and they are all 'competing' with each other you just segregate the fan base when for success you need them together as a unit. When the plane flys over even if Rahic and Rupp are there they will just think to themselves 'it's like 50 people' if a boycott happens they will think 'it's a minority', if a protest happens they will again think 'its a minority' and its hence easy for them to ignore

And the thing is even if people think 'well it may be tiny but the flyover will start the discussion' the problem is you have no plan to maximise the effectiveness of the flyover. You are hoping it will start a discussion but you aren't forcing that discussion. It needs a joined up campaign where everything is done leads directly into something else, not a plane flys over for a few mins, by the end of the game everything is forgotten and you wait for the next group to do their things

 

Remember I have access to the twitter account for the forum and it follows over 1000 Bradford fans and I hence saw many of the discussion threads. Most when discussing it weren't doing so using the #bcafc hashtag or even tagging in @bantamtalk but the discussion and negativity was there. You even had other groups who were doing their own thing being negative towards the idea which highlights the problem this and all the other group's actions have in that there is a split that allows you to be 'divided and conquered'

 

I'm not saying you should be doing nothing, hey if this flyover was part of some joined up strategy I might even think it was worth a try. A good example of the lack of strategy came when @king karl suggested having BantamTalk as part of the slogan. While he may have suggested it as more of a promo for the forum it’s actually not a bad idea but it was shot down without any disucssion . Let’s say all the fans applaud the banner, what are they supposed to do with it? You want it to start a discussion but where that’s discussion supposed to happen, driving it to one central location be it here or elsewhere would actually be advantageous rather than having isolated discussions. Hiring a social media company as well to run a proper social media campaign around it would also have been a good idea and maybe use it to help push something like your own version of the green and gold campaign (you don’t have the advantage of previously playing in a different colour but you could turn up in Bradford Park colours or something) as a non distruptive but visual showing of dissent.

But ultimately it should be a joined up campaign undertaking actions that every stakeholder group can get behind and one that is going to be prolonged rather than needing £750 once or even twice a week to get that few minutes of exposure to keep it in people’s minds

 

It doesn’t matter if you think it’s on life support, you are going to make it worse. If you are one of the people who is happy for the club to go bankrupt and have to start back up as Bradford A.F.C. playing in Northern Countries East League 1 then I’m sure you don’t care but that’s harldy a good situation to end up, but surely most want the club to do 'well' and get rid of the owners which should mean you want to create the best atmosphere for 90 mins possible for the players?