The answer is a brusque one. When it comes down to having a sense of communality too many elements of BCFC are ****. Really ****. Take Upfest on the doorstep. Tens of thousands attend, its a couple of hundred of metres away from Ashton Gate and City fail to get involved in any way. Several thousand attend Ashton Boys kids tournament opposite the ground. I have yet to see City attend in any form. I hope this season will be different.
I get the impression from this site that "community involvement" and Bristol City are strangers. Not living in the country makes me rely on not606 posters to give me the goodies, and baddies, on my club and from what I read on this site we don't even make an effort. If that is truly the case then I can understand why we don't succeed at much of anything.
The club and its players should be touring every school in the south of the city trying to attract future generations of fans but there is, and always has been, a very strange relationship and almost total disconnect between the club and the local community. When you see Premiership sides doing it when they already have huge fan bases and sell out crowds, it makes you wonder why we seemingly make absolutely no effort.
Players do visit schools, but taking the clubs own Community trust training as an example a LOT more should be done. I have heard a lot of good about Amy Knighton who runs the Community trust, those who meet her says she is enthusiastic, hard working and above all passionate. Amy Knighton is also a fan. That passion and enthusiasm can be viewed as a skill. Meanwhile City have employees and directors who are not fans, they do not share that passion and enthusiasm for the club. You love football or you do not, there are no inbetweens. City should call upon the ideas of fans to increases the clubs reach. The ideas fans have will not all be necessarily cost restrictive. With the Gas heading backwards now is an even better time for a root and branch evaluation of how the club performs off the pitch.
The pillar philosophy was a lot of board room nonsense that was supposed to get the supporters feeling good about their club for the future. Why do people waste their time coming up with this rubbish and expect us to believe it? Makes me wonder sometimes where the important factors of running a football club went.
The five pillars is now called the five points of interest. Put that alongside the ground consultation where a year later fans cant see the design for the new Wedlock. It is the same people making up the same ****.
I met a couple of people from the community trust when Cole Skuse and Steve Davies visited a couple of local schools. They seemed very committed and keen to engage more youngsters.
Which is great, but are they going back 6 months later to see how many kids have been to a City game or persuaded their family to attend regularly or buy a season ticket ?
My son did attend weekly community trust coaching for six months. He did not meet a single player at these coaching sessions. The sessions occur in Filton, Keynsham, Knowle and the players ? The players are not also regularly attending the out of term courses, or where not. The community trust has not visted my sons school, or his closest friend. Players have not visited my sons school, or his closest friend. I have obviously met and spoken to community trust coaches and I would speak very highly of one in particular, but multiply the above performance around Bristol and the reach of the community trust is limited, it appears limited also by the FC not using assets i.e players to their full potential. What is needed to improve is a club that is engaged, and that requires focus from the FC beyond youthful male and female community trust coaches some of whom coach for free.
Have you made any enquiries about it with City? It does seem short sighted. The writers involved are quite left wing and the Easton Cowboys are a radical team started by punk types perhaps that is why City steered clear.
