Treated with respect or contempt?

The response to the Supporters Association minutes

When the Barnet FC Supporters Association minutes dropped into my inbox early last week I had to have a read through after spotting on Twitter from those who had already viewed them that they made interesting reading. Well, interesting maybe a polite word to use given what I want to say.

The BFC SA have in my opinion made some good strides since reforming, I’ve some friends as current committee members and ex ones as well, guys and girls who have being championing our cause as Bees supporters but from my looking inwards appear to be hitting a brick wall on the club’s part.

Some of the responses provided from the club didn’t sit well with me, well more than some to be honest, some smack of the ridiculous and some of this might not be pretty for club officials to read but that’s my opinion and one I’m entitled to.

Just before I get started I listened to the Beespod episode that Iain, Mem and Charlie put together. Passionate, easy to resonate with but bloody painful to think what some of us have been championing for months seems intent on blowing itself up from the inside out, Downhill Second Half who have returned to watching at The Hive this season have also produced a very good piece on the same topic.

But let’s get started shall we, get comfy, grab a cuppa, maybe some popcorn and see what you think. The first point off the list, the damn floodlights. Great we want to turn them into LED ones which will benefit the energy bill, but the bulbs have been slowly going out on all pylons since the beginning of last season. I’ve seen County League clubs repair these better, we’ve just had a close season to get it done, it looks ridiculous and for the want of a better word, tinpot.

It's amateur, it’s poor, it’s not caring ( you might see that a few times through this or you might not) and next time you watch a floodlight match, count how many times one of our players raises his hand above his eyes to see where exactly the flight of the ball is because the missing bulbs are causing them a problem.

Next up, scoreboards. I’m fed up seeing it mentioned on Twitter, again one excuse after another for what two years overall? The club don’t seem to think it’s an issue, well every bloody supporter does myself included. No budget claims our ‘spokesperson’ for it, do me a favour! The stadium is surrounded by money making ventures, stick your hand in your pocket and get it sorted or explain why it’s not being done, there is not enough transparency between the club and supporters on simple matters.

And that brings me onto the next point, probably the biggest one.

                        ‘The chairman personally makes up a deficit of over £110K to BFC every month’.

Really? The Hive Group or whatever you want to call it makes up the deficit, that’s the truth isn’t it? Were we not led to believe that the move to The Hive was to enable Barnet Football Club to compete on a level with other bigger clubs to be more than competitive? Barnet FC made the move to The Hive possible, the sale of Underhill made the move to The Hive possible, so if it’s not there to support the football club, which up and down the land most lose money year on year what is the purpose of The Hive alongside BFC?

And if Tony you’ve had enough of ‘stumping up the losses’ get the club up for sale, cut your losses. One thing I will never criticise Tony for is the club has never been close to debt or in financial trouble under his watch but no longer can you run this club on a shoestring budget and expect to compete.

Supporters actually WANT to put money into his pocket, this is the daft thing! But we have a club shop that you can’t access except on a matchday because it’s now located inside the actual confines of the main stadium, whose bright idea was that??!! The online merchandise offer is poor to non-existent, easy money Tony surely, even the casual would no doubt pitch up and buy on a non-matchday but no, lets make it difficult eh!

We can’t get a decent pint, it’s taken weeks to get a food offering, read the room, people want to give you money, but you make it damn difficult for it to happen. A couple of mates of mine are now taking to eating and drinking before and after games elsewhere because they are fed up with a poor offer that is put in front of them and fed up with excuse after excuse, I am at a loss to understand why you don’t want to take our money? For a pretty decent businessman who must like a profit, you really baffle me.

Season tickets. I’ll be honest I’m not sure criticised was the right word to use, maybe better saying the offer didn’t suit everyone. It seems as well the chairman wasn’t happy that it hasn’t attracted new supporters, but then did he really not expect existing season ticket holders to take up the generous offer or those who go semi regularly to convert once again? Delusion surely, no?

The SA gave him other ideas like an early bird offer which most clubs tend to do, even lower down the pyramid but no, rebuffed. Was there any marketing outside of the club website or Twitter/Facebook/Instagram because I failed to see it make anywhere else? How were they expecting a take up if you don’t do anything to promote it? These things don’t just fall in your lap do they, got to work for it, be no surprise if they ever release the figures that take up was nowhere near what they expected, but that’ll be the fault of everyone else despite the club doing very little to help themselves, sounds all too familiar.

Matchday commentary. Apparently ‘not a high priority’, err hello! The club exists for its supporters but they’re not a priority, sorry but that stinks. That stinks heavily for me, that you want the Supporters Association to report back to their members that we don’t think you’re deserving of a service if you can’t attend a game for whatever reason, you honestly can’t make this up! And it doesn’t get much better either.

The matchday experience. Dear me, where do we start with this one!? It started the year at less than basic and has moderately improved in my opinion. These cited ‘staff shortages’ across London is wearing very thin as an excuse, that’s been trotted out since the end of July. Apparently London clubs are suffering as a result.

Now I follow a lot of fans of all London clubs across plenty of social media channels and I haven’t seen one complaining their club hasn’t been able to supply food nor have trouble finding staff to pull a pint, so maybe some evidence then it exists as a problem because it’s not in front of my eyes anywhere and they are pretty much everywhere!

Beer and Neck Oil. Well no wonder large amounts weren’t sold because supporters got fed up waiting to get a pint in good time and then the bar shuts straight after a game, it’s really not rocket science is it? Pre-pour has been suggested so many times but again falls on deaf ears because I presume fans are not important enough to be listened to.

I’m glad I couldn’t attend the York game, that appeared to me to be the final nail to trigger something needing to be done, everything that could be poor was poor and I feel for everyone who goes while I’m not there and I read it all across Twitter, where fans of other clubs can read for themselves how poor the experience is, truly embarrassing.

Hand dryers. We really are having to scrape and scrape the bottom of the barrel, these bloody things haven’t worked inside the gents at least in the Legends Stand toilets for over 12 months, I understand we employ a site manager or something like that, well what the hell are they doing when broken things aren’t working?? Sounds like the scoreboards doesn’t it, be waiting forever for a fix.

The SA have raised points that the club should be going after i.e. World Cup offers, Andy’s Men’s club and getting a pat on the back for, instead of having it suggested to them.

I felt over the summer the club was turning a corner and while there has been a struggle on the pitch over the last few weeks I fully expect that to come good once again, off the pitch the club needs to sort itself out, Tony feel free to disagree with me, but as Beespod put their latest offering we appear to be ‘Annoying Customers’.

The SA have done their bit for us, now the ball is firmly in the club’s court to decide whether they are indeed interested in those who were here pre 1994 and will be here long after the chairman has gone, I need a lot of convincing I’ll tell you that….