Fan ownership is a great idea ..... so why has it never worked with Hull City? Why did Tigers 2000 and the Tigers Co-op fail? Would you accept supporting Hull Tigers if the name change brought sponsorship financing the club being run by the fans rather than Hull City changing hands between (mostly crap, sometimes wealthy) owners every few years? It's a sacrifice I'd make NOW if it helped bring in more sponsorship (and I think it would) which helped the club avoid ownership by Bartlett ... who never had fish heads stuffed through his front door .... and his ilk .... I admire Dr. Allam's balls for taking this job on at all.
I don't know about Tigers 2000, but the Tigers co-op failed because Adam Pearson didn't want any fan ownership, which was fair enough, he was a minority shareholder himself and didn't want that shareholding further diluted. Hull Tigers is a ****e idea, motivated by spite, not by any commercial decision making. I don't believe it would generate any extra income, in fact, I believe it would reduce income by further pissing off the existing fan base, exactly as has happened at Cardiff City. I don't even think AA believes it will generate any extra income, he just refuses to admit he got it wrong.
I've asked some before, you're the one that's got my curiosity at the moment. It's not really a difficult question, you either go to games or you don't. I guess the how many and when could cloud it.
Thanks for a straight answer. You now have a better idea where I'm coming from. As far as I'm concerned Dr. Allam isn't Bartlett, Lloyd or Hinchcliffe "it's me Kathy ..", Ridsdale, Bates, Oysten or any of the other characters we could have attracted. One tick in the Allam box. He's also as good as "from Hull" as far as I'm concerned. Another tick in the Allam box. He takes hard decisions and generally gets them right in my opinion ... the sacking of Barmby, who will always be a hero to me, the hiring of Steve Bruce ... another tick in the Allam box. I trust Dr. Allam not to shaft the club. That's a real relief ... and I just think that Hull City's only chance for decades, to move from being a rich man's play thing to a club owned and run by its fans is now and under Dr. Allam's control. Since fan buy outs haven't worked in Hull before (for lots of reasons we can't fix), I don't mind the Hull Tigers change AS AN EXPERIMENT to see if it works. If a fan run club at a later date thinks sponsorship will not be affected by changing the name back to Hull City, that would suit me fine .... I would, however not like to revisit the days of Lloyd trying to get us into the conference to groundshare with FC at The Boulevard, being owned by someone in jail or finding the club is massively in debt after a "remote" owner like Bartlett has milked the club dry. For me, the continuation of the club is more important than the name. If, before Dr. Allam bought the club, someone had asked "I'll save the club IF it's name can be changed to "Hull Tigers" or just "Tigers", would you have let the club be dissolved as Hull City or lived on under another name?
It doesn't really matter if you 'mind' or not, the FA mind and they've blocked it as a consequence, which is excellent news, as it was a ridiculous idea.
