I think there is a fair bit of truth to it. The old codger did talk about it with some passion and did seem genuinely quite hurt when he got called a stupid **** about it.
You regularly post this, despite the fact that it's been pointed out to you before, that the first thing Duffen did when we got to the Premier League, was scrap the guaranteed away tickets for corporate members.
When we went to see him, he didn't even pretend it was for any reason other than his fallout with the Council.
The current OSC bears no resemblance to the old one. The board isn't made up of happy clapping autograph hunting supporters, it is just a small group of Hull City supporters who are working hard at maintaining an official link between the support and the club. I have never met any first team players whilst on the board. The club does play a major part in what we can provide, access to players, the academy and use of club media. No one whilst, I have been on the board has ever asked us to do anything to promote a view of the owners or the club. The only contact we have with the owners is via the Supporters Committee meetings. Our aims are to provide a means for supporters to get closer to the club. We do not believe we are representative of the support, we are just supporters ourselves and whilst in the past the politics of the club/owners and support, produced a conflict in the way the OSC presented itself, that is not the case now. Our membership is from all of the supporter base and we listen to every side of every argument and if asked we will give an honest view. My own belief is that membership of the OSC should be free, in fact you can register as a member of our website for free. There is some confusion about the status of the OSC, It is a limited company, its board is elected by the board itself. The membership is given the opportunity to elect the board, but in the end it is the board itself that approves directors, just like in any company. This is not an idea situation, but it is how the OSC was set up by Adam Pearson and we have plans to implement major changes. But change costs money and time and requires more people to be involved and we are not ready yet If anyone believes that I or any other Director of the OSC is on the board in order to personally benefit from it in any way, they are wrong. I gain from the experience of working within a supporters organisation and at one time I believed that my business could benefit from that experience. Its just the same as professionals being school governors, most do its for two reasons community and to gain experience. I get nothing from the club, have very little contact with the club, no favours, no introductions, nothing. We focus on enjoying supporting Hull City, if anyone wants to step forward and help, you are more than welcome. If anyone wants to see what we do, come along to our pre-match events in the Tigers Trust Arena Bar. Focus on the past all you like, Bernard Noble left the OSC in 2016.
It seems unlikely that it was 'the first thing Duffen did' - it was more likely one of the many things he busied himself with in those heady times. It tend to class corporates and sponsors as one body to all intents and purposes, it seems hair-splitting to differentiate them for the purposes of this thread. They are both a blight on the modern game with their neediness and sense of entitlement. I'm not one of these people who hanker after the BP days but possibly one of the reasons they remember it fondly was the absence of a large chunk of mutes with various fifth columnists in their midst when the opposition scores like we get at the KCOM. If you were stiffed by the Duffman/Bartlett - tough. Join the lonq gueue.
I distinctly remember the only guaranteed way of getting a ticket for Chelsea away during the first season in the Prem was to go via corporate. They organised at least one bus, maybe two. I travelled on one for the first and only time and only did so because a match ticket was guaranteed. Duffen did knock away direct on the head but allowed about 50 or so of the original members to still qualify. His 'lottery' for away tickets was a massive mistake. I wonder how many of those in the lottery draw for away tickets then are at Swansea on Saturday ?
It’s indisputable FACToidamundo that that was the reason that birthed it. But I do think the senile old **** thought he’d actually landed on a good idea with some merit. Like he was starting to see himself as a pioneer of modern football of sorts. I think it genuinely hurt him when everyone told him he’s dumb as **** and his idea was ****.
Yeah it was called unofficially Club 58 or summat, waiting list for it a few days after 24/05/2008 and I believe only double digit number on the list. (Prove me wrong someone?) I remember the paltry turnout at Goodison for a televised game in 2009/10 ....we must have only sold about half the tix. Who would have believed that could happen given the tremendous away following from 2004 to 2008? Personally I believe engineering a situation where prawn sandwiches/sponsors and the like had either priority or parity with people who were less 'well connected;' and didn't work in offices all day. impacted our support. Most is us will remember the yuppy types with bored kids who started appearing in our end at Anfield or Old Trafford I'm sure. We have to go head to head with the RL clubs locally to win back the kids whose parents find it so much easier and cheaper to go to the rugby.
This - in a nutshell. Factor in thin-skinned owners with no knowledge of football tradition and customs, or a sense of stewardship of something that predates and will outlive them, and who seem to thrive on long-running conflicts, and you have the reasons why our club is at the lowest ebb since pre AP days. No expectation. No direction. No identity. Just a name, a budget, a rented ground and some employees. Oh, and some diehards who have not yet been defeated by all the unnecessary obstacles (or gates) put in their path.
Duffen certainly announced that he was scrapping away direct. In the end he back tracked slightly and allowed existing members to continue but it was no longer possible to join if you weren't a member at that time.
The right thing to do in the circumstances, though he should have given some priority to others who’s been going away for years, rather than making it a free for all .
Duffen said he wasn’t going to say some supporters were more entitled than others and scrapped away direct for all but the original members who joined when we were in the bottom tier. Nice way of freeing up a few tickets which seemed to go to new arrivals in the supposed lucky dip more than those long term fans who were disenfranchised. The Allams finished it off altogether.
That's pretty much my recollection too, and if you managed to get a ticket, sharing space with someone that acquired a ticket for the first ever game, and knowing that fans that had done the hard miles couldn't get one, didn't add to the experience. However, quite a few of those that really only started travelling at that time got bit, and have stuck with it, some even becoming prominent, so in itself maybe it wasn't a bad thing in that respect. Sadly, it played its part in many of those that did the hard miles getting used to doing other things with their time now.
He did, as I put in my other post. But just the ones who had originally joined. Which will have been the 61, although I thought it was somewhat less than that. Used to know one of them before he died aged 50. One of the biggest City fanatics going despite being from Brid and not being a big fan of Hull itself.Was taken by his dad to BP when a kid and was hooked. He only missed one match home or away between 1990 and his death in 2008, a lot of those years were when fans were thin on the ground. He used to go with 2 others who only missed halfvacdozenngamesvthrough work in all those years. Their away trips became less regular as the other two had joined later and he was the only one guaranteed a ticket. He then used to find himself amongst people who didn’t know who the players were with kids in tow who weren’t interested. I remember seeing a clip on you tube at Arsenal where he was surrounded by a load of people doing Mauled By The Tigers with an expression bordering on contempt on his face yet still happy that we were winning.
It would have done no harm to have kept it on. After all those people committed to buying tickets for virtually all away games in the lower divisions. There weren’t that many and if anyone deserved first dibs on them in the top flight it was those people.
Whatever happened to that tix office software database that logged all ticket purchasers up to and including 2008? Junked ?
Don’t know. I do know that when GC first met AP that Pearson told him he couldn’t bring in a scheme to contact previous ticket holders or reward loyal fans as there were no records of them to work on.
Changing his allegiance , you wonder why ? He is probably a black and white eggchaser . You can only have one team . **** Torquay , Fleetwood , Liverpool and Sheffield United. I would not have entertained him .
