The FA will see a minority of less than 50 in favour of Hull Tigers. They may take into account the ballot taking place at the same time as applications for an FA Cup semi-final and the threat to walk out of the club within 24 hours if they'd don't get their way. Either way it is not a ringing endorsement by Hull City fans for a change of name to Hull Tigers. The ballot will be next to useless in any legal action and leaves Assem Allam with the difficult question of what to do next. Will he stop digging, who knows?
Of the seven people other than myself, that voted (all no votes), all returned as blank votes. Every one of us followed the instruction to "try again". I was the only one to receive confirmation, my vote had been registered. We need to get the Allams out of our club.
The truth of the matter is that this result is largely meaningless, either as a true measure of opinions regarding either the name change proposal, or the supporters’ desire to see Dr Allam and his son Ehab stay at the City helm. The yawning deficiencies of the ballot were there for all to see. The ballot form’s presentation of the case for only one of the options flew in the face of all reasonable conventions. The loaded nature of the questions, which conflated the name change proposal with the owners’ desire to validate their ownership amongst supporters, made the responses to each question confused and garbled. The inclusion of the entirely bizarre and divisive “not bothered” option added further irrelevance to the ballot. Then there was the haphazard manner in which the ballot was conducted. Large swathes of the season card-holding electorate failed to receive an email inviting them to cast a vote, meaning they had to rely on the media (or CTWD!) to hear about the important decision that they were being asked to make. The ballot form provided for downloading was so poorly created that hundreds of people sent in blank responses, after having completed their votes and seen their details wiped from the form. The apparent insecurity of both the boxes provided to receive hard copy ballot forms, and the email account holding the returned ballots remains a cause for concern. The email account was supposedly totally secure, yet Hull City staff were routinely able to report on the number of votes cast. The ballot boxes for hard copy forms were supposed to be available for use during two fixtures at the KC Stadium, one a City match and the other a Hull FC fixture, yet twice people were turned away. How many voters simply gave up in the face of such incompetence? Such basic process errors makes one wonder what the independent adjudicators Beyond Dispute – hired at great expense to Hull City, we are assured by the club – were up to when the ballot process was conceived and enacted. As long ago as last November, CTWD called on Dr Allam to undertake a fair and simple ballot amongst season card holders, to gauge opinions about his proposed name change. Instead he conducted a decidedly unfair ballot, which was far from simple and appallingly managed, four months after it was useful and several weeks after the FA announced its provisional recommendation on the name change. It is a matter of great regret to CTWD that Dr Allam has continued to act so disrespectfully to Hull City supporters. We genuinely hope that we have now reached the end of this sorry episode. We call for the name Hull City to be retained for good, allowing supporters to focus their minds on the tremendous feats that Steve Bruce, the coaching staff and the playing staff have achieved thanks to the unprecedented financial generosity of Dr Allam. Who knows, win against Everton in our last League fixture and Hull City might be playing in the Europa League next season! We fervently hope that City supporters are given the chance to savour that possibility with this name change debacle put behind us.
Of the seven people other than myself, that voted (all no votes), all returned as blank votes. Every one of us followed the instruction to "try again". I was the only one to receive confirmation, my vote had been registered. We need to get the Allams out of our club.
None - Assem personally checked all of them and made sure they had a tick in one of the boxes. But don't let the FA know that!
Shame on the 2/3rds of you for ignoring the ballot. Your apathy is embarrassing to the history and traditions of the English game. You are such a ****.
I have a feeling most didn't want to be associated with such an obviously corrupt ballot. Goes without saying.
So the plan was to just bend over? Absolutely. One thing i've been wondering. Do you get any booers or protesters to the protests (i.e. 19:04)?
It doesn't. That simply isn't how ballots work. Those who don't vote are not counted, and those who did vote are assumed to be representative of those who didn't. The only way to better represent those who don't vote is to get them to vote! Can't even argue with that.
But what comes out of that? He'll just show his results to the F.A. and they'll have to take the majority vote. What harm comes from voting NO? More harm comes from an apathetic approach to it.
No. It's the loudest song sung at every City game, home or away. At away games, almost everyone sings it. At home the vast majority of the East stand sing it with scarves held up and it's the only song the West and South also join in with. Of those who want us to change their name (but only since Allam came up with the idea) there can only be a very tiny number of them who go to games.
The FA have absolutely no interest in this loaded ballot and the rhetoric that surrounded it, they're completely ignoring it.
