Far too easy and sensible to be adopted by the FA. They are more likely to inform prospective owners that any such change will require a £50m contribution to the FA for changing their website etc!
They're all good, fair points in my view. I reckon if he'd gone about it differently, there would have been far less objection. Unfortunately, it's been clear from the off that there is no valid reason for the change other than a petulant dig at the local City Council. Ironically, most agree with his low opinion of the Council, but find themselves supporting the Council position in the dispute.
agree totally DMD. It seems that this was always his plan bu the PR was just handled badly He could have waited until this transfer window and got in the players you have to get a bit of support and floated the idea. At the start of the season I said that too many people had under-estimated your team and youd be surprising a few. Im not surprised you beat us. As for the teams name..I know its sacred, and im probably (definitely) being a hypocrite, but how much would it take for the fans to accept it.? lets say (as an exercise) he was like Roman or Citehs shiek and got you Pepe as your manager and Messi as your captain....Do you think that your fans would be ok with a name change then? if so it would be very hypocritical, if not they would be cutting off the nose to spite the face. just a thought mate and of fence intended. personally i dont know where i would stand on this question but luckily enough..this is not an issue we face...YET
Was talking about that last night in pub. Amazingly there are some that don't like the new name, but argue strongly that we should let him do as he wants through a fear he'll walk away or reduce funding to the extent we'd get relegated. Even the most vociferous against the chairmen wavered when asked if they'd accept a name change if it came wrapped up with a generous Sheikh. To be fair, my objection isn't so much the name change itself, it's more the way it's being done and the lack of an honest, logical reason for it.
You could go for a religious following and call yourself Saint Rangers, which you could double up by changing the ground name to collect the Acker Bilk fans to see St rangers on the shore
Ouch. I could see your brain working on that one. What's the population of Hull and surrounding areas? You don't have much local competition for fans, would seem to be an interesting proposition for prospective owners as long as you are in the Prem. I tried to discuss this with Norwich fans a few months ago, they have a catchment of close on a million people, only need 5% of them as regulars and they have a 50,000 home crowd. But they preferred their ultra cautious approach to things, low salary caps etc etc. To be fair, I don't think they can count to 50,000, big numbers are a meaningless concept to them, once you are above 10 its just 'many'. Good luck with this and the rest of the season, I think there is growing respect for your team, and rightly so.
According to our chairman at yesterday's interview, the nearest club north of here is Newcastle. The potential catchment area is huge, we have a regular following from the Netherlands for example, and had and maybe still have one of the largest Sunday League set ups in Europe, but tapping into it's another issue. We've been **** for a long time and our local media have little time for us, so it's hard to get the message out.
Your Chairman seems to have a tenuous grasp on reality, let alone geography. If ours delivers on his promise of a new 40,000 stadium - and i'm sure he will try his hardest, but am not sure he realises the challenges he will face - we will be in a real fight for plastics and tourists to fill it regularly, the competition round our way is huge (and includes shopping, rugby and the West End as well as 5 other prem clubs) and the catchment areas are blurred. We got over 40,000 into Wembley in May, but a lot of those are very definitely big match fans. As noted by yourself and Wherever, clubs/teams have never been more remote to 'in the blood' fans, the business model has changed for the worse, only a collapse in TV revenue can save us.
Is the Fulham model, of making it accommodating for tourists an option? As a new build, you could make it a themed arena, so given your location, you could have a model Wembley or a bush, or maybe even a film set, specialising in drama obviously. I think stadium designs are very bland. They're not far past filling the corners in on four sheds round a field.
I feel for the Hull City fans. They are on the horns of a dilemma, on the one hand they have a good investor, on the other they want to keep their heritage. Heritage all the way for me!!!
I sometimes feel this country is strangled by heritage, is our heritage Shepherds Bush so we cannot move back to mmm Queens Park (not a dig Sheff)
Completely understand where you are coming from mate. What I should have made clear is that it is the name that is important, not necessarily where the ground is (although I wouldn't want to move too far).
Forgive me, I just couldn't see your name as anything but a question. Heritage all the way for me too, but it's a bit like Triggers Broom. From when I started in the late 60's, the only things left the same are some of the fans and the football club name, so what exactly is the heritage of the football club?
Memories, stories, pints. It's just about the fans, and the shared history. Don't know about the demographic on the Hull board, here we have a mix but a large number of us saw their first R's game in the early 70's or before, we have a lot of nostalgia in between the bitching about Adel Taarabt, Redknapp etc. Clubs are just like companies and religions, they don't exist outside of our collective imagination, but are ****ing difficult to destroy. I'm off to Germany for a long weekend in November, getting to a Hertha Berlin home game followed by a Wolfsburg home game, I'm assured that the atmosphere will take me back. Standing (yes standing) with the nutters at the Berlin match.
I think you're right, but it begs a question on shared memories for those of our fans that are only old enough to have known our new ground and relative success, so theirs is effectively a different club to mine. Football is a different world now, the baton's handed over. We currently have a fans meeting with the club, and I'm wondering if it'd be better loading it with younger fans so we can build for their future, because I'm not sure if I'd have stuck around so long if recent games were my first youthful experience. I envy your trip. Had some good times in Germany. Nice place, nice people. Enjoy.
No. I'd rather be Hull City in the Conference than Hull Tigers in the Prem. i support Hull City, Hull Tigers means nothing to me. Contrary to what Sky make us believe, there is life and football outside of the Premier League.
This is, of course, completely off track, but do many Hull sides still play in the FA Sunday Cup? My Sunday side in Ipswich never played against any side north of Birmingham in our years in that competition but I know that a Hull side have won it at least once. Also, how many sides did there use to be on Sunday's in the Hull area? In the '80's Ipswich had two Sunday leagues with a combined total of sixteen divisions - 192 teams plus waiting lists of teams wanting to join. Now there is one league with about forty teams only!
That's cruel, fancy expecting me to back my claims up with facts...you bastard. I've asked on our board to see if anyone knows. http://www.not606.com/showthread.php/277188-Local-Sunday-League
