Anybody catch a couple of texts claiming there's a conspiracy to stop the 19:04 chant on BBC Radio Humberside after the game? Because you can't see the clocks on the scoreboard, it's because Allam doesn't want us to know what time it is... Oh dear. Although that does need changing.
When Steve Harper was announced as man of the match tonight his sponsor, HCSS, was announced by that goon Jordan as "Hull City Supporters of the South." Another name change imposition? Or an attempt to pass off the independent Southern Supporters as an offshoot of the OSC? Or just a fat idiot with a microphone? Hard to say.
Unless it was even smaller tonight than it has been at previous games these people want to get their eyes checked. It's easy to read both clocks from where I sit, and other than the rows behind me people have to be closer to at least one of the clocks than I am (they're at opposite ends, if they're further from one they're closer to the other) yet there's people saying they can't read it from the East Stand. We also covered that in previous games it was missing because of replays (Man U) and adverts to avoid showing replays of dodgy decisions (which they're not allowed to show). That said, Ash Lord has said on twitter that they're going to make it bigger for future games.
I had my eyes tested this week and, like everyone around me, I really struggled to see the time on either clock. They were notably smaller to the point of being useless. I can't begin to imagine why anyone would think it was a bright idea. I can understand why people assume it's a ploy against the chant, as taking it down at 19 minutes certainly looked like. The argument of posting adverts rather than replays is weak to say the least, plus, even if it is true, they should have had the sense and understanding to see how it must look in both cases.
Over the last four months, we here at City Till We Die have heard quite a few remarks about the No To Hull Tigers campaign cropping up time and time again. Some are honest misunderstandings; others are deliberate distortions. We thought it was about time we addressed a few of these old chestnuts. “It’s his business. He can do whatever he wants!” Can he? It’d be odd if he could, because that’s not something you can really say about any business in the country. All businesses are subject to laws – for example, about health and safety, how much they pay their employees, how much pollution they produce, and so on. Many businesses are also subject to additional rules and regulations relating to their particular industry. Hull City AFC is subject to a set of rules and regulations for the football industry. They’re contained within the FA Handbook, which you can view online at http://bit.ly/FARules. Rule 3L covers the situation where an owner wishes to change the registered playing name of their club (the name used in league tables and fixtures). It reads as follows: “Any application for a change of playing name must be received by The Association before 1st April in any calendar year in order for it to be considered by Council for adoption in the following playing season. Council will use its absolute discretion in deciding whether to approve a change in a Club’s playing name.” So can Dr Allam “do whatever he wants”? No. Ultimately, it’s for the FA to decide. Furthermore, it’s not very good business practice to make a fundamental change to your business without trying to ascertain the views of your most loyal, regular customers – in this case, supporters of the football club, a large percentage of whom are clearly very unhappy with Dr Allam’s proposal. “You can still call them Hull City if you want, so it doesn’t matter!” Picture this: it’s August 2014. The first day of the new Premier League season. The announcer bellows, “This is the KC Stadium, the home of Hull Tigers!” as Tom Huddlestone, Shane Long, Sone Aluko and co run out onto the pitch, wearing their shirts emblazoned with “Hull Tigers” badges. During the game, the scoreboard shows the score for Hull Tigers. Whenever an announcement for a substitution is made, it mentions who’s coming on for Hull Tigers. At halftime, you browse your Hull Tigers matchday programme. When you get home, Final Score gives the result for Hull Tigers, and shows where Hull Tigers are in the league table. That night, on Match Of The Day, Gary Lineker introduces the highlights of the Hull Tigers game. That’s followed by an interview with Hull Tigers manager Steve Bruce and some analysis of how well Hull Tigers played. And if, for the first time in our 110-year history, we finally win a major trophy, what name is engraved on the cup? You got it: Hull Tigers. For a while – perhaps a decade or more – the City songs persist. But gradually they die out. After all, it seems silly to sing “City Till I Die” and “We Are Hull City” when the official name of the club is Hull Tigers. You might keep calling them Hull City. But what will your grandchildren call them? “I’d rather be Hull Tigers in the Premier League than Hull City in the Conference!” It’s not a choice between one or the other! We are currently in the Premier League, and we got there with the name Hull City. The same was true in 2008. Changing our name will not magically guarantee Premier League success any more than keeping our name will doom us to tumbling down the divisions. “We’ll only find out for sure if a name change will work by trying it – so let’s try it!” So in order to test a theory, you’re willing to spend a fortune on rebranding everything to do with the club, in the process alienating thousands of existing loyal “customers”? This is rather like testing whether you can fly by jumping out of the window. Here’s a better idea. Hire a market research company. Send them to Asia to carry out focus groups. Ask people, “What do you think of the name Hull City? Now, what do you think of Hull Tigers? Would you be more likely to support the club or buy its merchandise if the name was changed?” A sensible businessman would base a decision this important on as much hard data as possible, rather than just following a hunch. But when City Till We Die met Dr Allam on 1 November 2013, he told us that he had not done a single scrap of research into the potential benefits of a name change. “They flippin’ love tigers in Asia! Changing our name to Hull Tigers will sell thousands of replica shirts in the far East!” Clubs like Manchester United have large followings overseas because they have been successful over a sustained period of time; because they win trophies, sign big-name players, and get major media coverage. Hull City is quite some way from reaching that stage. Furthermore, when people in China do buy football shirts, they invariably buy counterfeits, which make no money for English clubs. There’s also a very strong argument that what people overseas really buy into are the history and traditions of English football. From an Asian point of view, names like “City”, “United” and “County” are exotic. In the USA, the latest club to join the MLS is a team in Orlando, called… you guessed it, Orlando City. “These campaigners are just a load of young hotheads. Angry young men and troublemakers, the lot of ‘em!” At the time of writing, City Till We Die has 1699 members. Barring about 40 people who signed up offline, everyone has given us their date of birth, which means we have a detailed breakdown of the age range of our membership. It looks like this: Under 18: 7.2% 20-30: 26.35% 30-40: 22.27% 40-50: 23.83% 50-60: 16.39% 60+: 7.26% 47.48% of our membership is over 40. Still not convinced? Okay, how about our Facebook followers? The Insights page for www.facebook.com/NoToHullTigers gives us a breakdown of everyone who’s “liked” our page by age group. The figures currently look like this: 13-17: 6.8% 18-24: 23% 25-34: 28% 35-44: 22% 45-54: 14% 55-64: 4% 65+: 1.4% As you’d expect for social media, that skews a little younger. Still, even on Facebook, 41.4% of our supporters are over 35. “Where were all these campaigners when just 2,000 people were going to Boothferry Park?” Well, many of them were at Boothferry Park, amongst that 2000! Some of them have been going to every game for decades. Some of them were only going to games occasionally. Some hadn’t been born yet. And yes, some were alive, but hadn’t yet caught the City bug. Here’s the important thing: exactly the same can be said for people who do not object to the name change. The issue of Hull City’s name isn’t a “Who’s the best supporter?” competition. There are loyal fans on both sides of the argument. Check our public statements: City Till We Die has never claimed otherwise. Our campaign is an inclusive one, open to all Hull City supporters, no matter how long they’ve followed the club, and no matter what level of commitment they’re able to make. Whether you’re a hardcore Boothferry Park stalwart or an occasional fan who’s only recently discovered the joys of following City, if you think changing our club’s name is wrong, then we’re happy to welcome you to the fold. “It’s just a small minority - a few hundred people!” If that’s the case, why have 12,000 people taken our No To Hull Tigers badges? Perhaps those 12,000 people just like shiny things? If that’s the case, why have over 15,000 people signed our petition? If that’s the case, why are over 6,000 people following us on Twitter? If that’s the case, why have over 3,000 people signed our giant flag? If that’s the case, why have thousands of people taken one of our “Say No To Hull Tigers” postcards to post to the FA?
“It’s just a small minority – 1,700 people!” This is confusing membership with support. At the last count, the Conservative Party had 134,000 members. But at the last general election, they received a popular vote of 10,703,654. Our 1,500 official members (sign up at www.citytillwedie.com/membership) are, no doubt, the people most actively engaged in our campaign. You could call those people our “activist base”. But there are a great many more people who agree with us. People support our campaign in many different ways. Not everyone feels comfortable with joining a group, or even singing a song. Some wear a badge. Some sign a petition; some don’t believe there’s any point in signing a petition! Everyone shows their support in the way they feel comfortable. Are we a majority? Well, since Dr Allam refused our request to hold a ballot of all season ticket holders to democratically determine what Hull City supporters as a whole want, we can’t prove that for certain. Odd that, given that he’s so certain we’re a tiny minority – if he’s so confident, why not call our bluff and shut us up? But every poll conducted so far suggests that our view is the majority view – including the Official Supporters Club poll, despite the fact it was carried out immediately after Dr Allam threatened to “walk away” from the club. “City Till We Die are a load of Luddites who’d be happier if the club was in League One! They don’t want it to be a success!” On the contrary: we’re thrilled to see Hull City competing in the top level of English football, and we’re very keen to stay there. Just not at the expense of our club’s history, or our integrity. We’d be very happy to see the club marketing itself more successfully overseas, and acquiring more international supporters. We love following Hull City; why would we want to deny that pleasure to others? We simply don’t think that rebranding the club as “Hull Tigers” is necessary to achieve that. We already have striking shirt colours and a nickname that’s one of the best in English football: The Tigers. Let’s market the hell out of that! "If it was down to these people we’d have never left Boothferry Park for the KC Stadium." Despite the deeply felt affection for Boothferry Park felt by thousands of Hull City supporters, there was no organised campaign against the move to the KC, for one very simple reason: the benefits of leaving a run-down ground and moving to a new state-of-the-art stadium were crystal clear. The same cannot be said of the proposed name change, as Dr Allam has failed to make a proper case for change to supporters. “These people have a lust for power! They want to take over the club!” There’s only one reason why City Till We Die has discussed the idea of a revitalised Supporters’ Trust taking a share in the ownership of the club. That’s because Dr Allam himself asked us to explore it further. When our representatives met with Dr Allam on 1 November 2013, it soon became apparent that he was not responsive to arguments about history or tradition. The only thing he was interested in were alternative revenue streams. When we discussed the possibility of a role for supporters, he responded with great interest, and asked us to explore the idea further. This is nothing new. In November 2010, when Dr Allam was finalising his takeover of the club, he told the Hull Daily Mail, “My vision is for Hull City to be owned 40% by local business owners from Hull and 60% the fans.” (Source: http://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/Undefined-Headline/story-11957207-detail/story.html)
I've noticed it's been smaller than it used to be for a while, had they made it even smaller than it was for the Spurs game? Since Liverpool, when there was no issue I've missed Fulham, and now Southampton, and for Man U I think they'd cut to Rooney's replay. For the rest of the games I haven't seen a problem though.
We’d be very happy to see the club marketing itself more successfully overseas, and acquiring more international supporters. We love following Hull City; why would we want to deny that pleasure to others? YEAH!! then we can all feel superior to them by calling them plastics too!
Well, we've had "FAQ" from City Till We Die and now there's a newsletter from CTWD which b rings us up-to-date on the 'No' campaign. Not a dicky from the 'Yes' side, except the usual crew who post on here.........
Nicole Hollingsworth ‏@caravannicki @CheJulesi @JezJ @bbcburnsy @geesport_hull @hullcityteam RESULT email from the club - clock will be back to normal size for next match.
CTWD: Newsletter 8 And about time too – City Till We Die eNewsletter returns with a round-up of a hectic, but productive few weeks! We offer our sincere apologies for the time that has elapsed since we were last in contact with you through our CTWD mailing list. Every time we thought we had a bit of breathing space to gather our thoughts and bring you all up-to-date with the latest events, it seemed like we had another deadline to hit, or another match or meeting to prepare for! Thank you for your patience, and we hope this is worth the wait. Of course, there is simply no other place to start than with the presentation we made to FA officials at Wembley on Monday 3rd February 2014, having been invited as stakeholders to make our case in opposition to the name change of Hull City AFC to Hull Tigers, as formally submitted by Dr Allam. We are unable to make any further comment until the FA have reviewed the evidence submitted by all stakeholders and reached their decision; we do not have a timeframe for this. We have, however, been able to make public the details of our written submission which was sent to the FA in advance of our meeting, and the presentation we gave on the day. These can all be seen here. If you have yet to read this or have yet to see our video, please do take a bit of time to do so. We can assure you that many hours of work and preparation went into ensuring that we said “No to Hull Tigers” with as much clarity and conviction as we could muster. This was truly a team effort, with contributions not only from ourselves as CTWD group members, but also from many additional volunteers who gave up hours of their time and resources too, in order to assist us. We are SO grateful to all these people. We hope you will agree that the end product is one that was worth the effort; we really don’t think we could have done much more. Made by City fans, for City fans, to keep us City. After all we didn’t choose Hull City AFC, it chose us! The hardest part of producing our FA presentation was, undoubtedly, having to choose what to leave out! The figures speak for themselves. Expressing the sheer scale of the impact that the campaign has achieved over the last 5 months is practically an impossible task. We included as many of your wonderful photographs and messages as we could, along with a summary of the fantastic solidarity shown by the wider football family – from Ajax to Aldershot to Atlanta, from Strasbourg to Swindon to Seattle – an astonishing ripple of interest out from the city we are so proud of and a wave of support back in towards us, all saying, “You are Hull City AFC, NO to Hull Tigers!” We did use thousands of your photographs in our giant mosaic of the club crest, which created a stunning visual statement of the CTWD community. Thank you so much for all your contributions; we really couldn’t do this without you! So. Postcards! The new badges! We’ve had 20,000 printed up to now and demand doesn’t show any sign of waning. We know of one CTWD member who has personally distributed, collected and posted over 200 of them from work colleagues, friends and associates. Take a bow Michael! This is one strategy we can keep up right until the FA make their decision, so if you haven’t sent one yet, or would like some more to give to other people, email us at [email protected] and we’ll make sure you get what we need. Of course, we are funding all printing and postage costs out of donations we receive from our supporters and we continue to be very grateful for any contributions you are able to make to the campaign. The massed ranks of licensed hooligans keep on swelling! Since the launch of the CTWD membership scheme in December,1700 of you have joined up, a superb response in a short time – thank you! We should now be in a position to send out the packs, to include your personal membership card and CTWD wristband, as they come in to us, rather than in batches. For a minimum fee of £2.00 (annually), you can show your pride in Hull City AFC’s tradition and help us consider a stake in its future. You will join a group that’s dedicated to retaining the name Hull City for a club that is successful and stable for many years to come. You will also be able to have a say in who runs the group, by voting for members of the committee or choosing to stand for election on that committee. We will be actively seeking your nominations to get involved in our first General Meeting in the next month or two. Our plans were somewhat derailed by the need to present our submission to the FA but we are back on track now and will have news about this meeting very soon. To join up now, please go to www.citytillwedie.com/membership - and why not sign up family and friends too? The amount of media coverage dedicated to the No To Hull Tigers campaign remains impressive; we really never thought from those early days in September 2013 that we would be fighting it off at times! Let us alert you now to an EXCLUSIVE we have for you at 8am Thursday 13th February – a City legend has spoken to CTWD about the campaign and his passionate feelings for retaining our name as Hull City AFC. So find out who told us, “I did play for this club for 13 years, and if anybody deserves a bit of a word, there’s only a few of us that have played more than me, so it’s like, ‘Why not?’” On 27 January, The Economist addressed the name change issue. To be honest, we’re not particularly impressed by their analysis! But you can read it here all the same: http://www.economist.com/blogs/gametheory/2014/01/marketing-and-tradition-football On 28 January, Dr Allam was the subject of The Guardian’s regular Gallery feature. We at CTWD don’t believe in encouraging this kind of mockery, but sadly our chairman has rather brought it upon himself - and it reflects the widespread disdain for the name change proposal. http://www.theguardian.com/football/gallery/2014/jan/28/assem-allam-the-gallery-hull-city On 2 February, City keeper Allan McGregor was asked about the name change on Sky Sport’s Goals On Sunday. Wisely, gave a diplomatic response – regardless of their personal views, we don’t want any of our players to incur Dr Allam’s displeasure! http://www1.skysports.com/watch/tv-...an-mcgregor-on-his-time-in-turkey-at-besiktas On 4 February, City Till We Die released a press release about our meeting with the FA, as well as all the elements of our submission. The story was broken by the Hull Daily Mail http://bit.ly/4FebHDM and later picked up by the likes of The Daily Mail http://bit.ly/4FebMail, The Telegraph http://bit.ly/4FebTel, The Daily Star http://bit.ly/4FebStar and Sky Sports http://bit.ly/4FebSky. Significantly, both The Daily Star and The Telegraph embedded our campaign video on their websites. It has now racked up nearly 25,000 views on YouTube. Finally, on Saturday 8 February, The Mirror reported the vitally important news of the East Riding County FA’s decision to vote against the name change. http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/hull-fans-optimistic-battle-prevent-3124424 The last five months have been truly remarkable for City Till We Die and the impact of the No To Hull Tigers campaign – you only need to track the growth of our social media sites to realise that, but the awareness of this important issue extends much further than Facebook and Twitter. Your messages of encouragement have been vital to us as a group of volunteers, especially at times when the workload becomes particularly heavy, and tricky to fit into already busy lives. Such wonderful words have keep us going because our hearts tell us we are right and our heads know we have the determination and ability to fight for the CTWD aims we adhere to. The decision to be made is not ours, or Dr Allam’s; it belongs to the Football Association, who celebrated their 150th anniversary year in the year we formed. They have the chance to make a statement that will protect the unique selling point of English football – its history, its culture, and therefore, its success. AMBITION AND TRADITION. CITY TILL WE DIE
There's some serious reading there and I will get around to it tomorrow, but thanks, from the bottom of my heart for this one: I wish to be associated with this. As time moves on CTWD go from strength to strength; there's no stopping us young guns!
I just hope we dont get bought by Lincoln City or Scunthorpe and get merged with their team when AA takes his ball home. AA loaned Hull City the money, he can pull that money out at any time.
I've got plenty of money tied up in my business. If I walked away I would lose it. Why do you persist in spouting the same nonsense?
difference is, you invested it. He loaned it. why? don't you get it? if I am wrong, I am wrong - OK I will bury my head in the sand like you do... Feel better now?
