NEWS ARCHIVE

Trust Members Crest Survey Findings

14th December 2022

Apologies for the lateness in this getting out, but it is better late than never as they say. Many thanks for all members that took part in this survey.

 

Nineteen members took part, and considering the objective factors which were that the Club put out two surveys in close proximity to each other and then ourselves attempting to create two of our own surveys around that time period where we experienced some technical delay, then that number of participants presents itself as very good indeed.

 

The result was that the existing crest won by an overwhelming majority – 95%.

 

However, the uniqueness of our survey was in the comments – a snapshot of our members’ views. Most thought the branding exercise was a waste of time and money, but if there had to be any changes, then minor tweaks could’ve been made to what was perceived by most as a historical badge.

 

The other concern was the short period of consultation time around the finished designs and that more consultation time could’ve been given to digest the proposals.

 

This was an exercise worth doing and the views and shows that the views of our members are broadly in line with the Trust Board.

 

We would like to thank all our members that took part in this survey.

City Gent gets shortlisted for FSA Fanzine of the Year

13th December 2022

This year the City Gent got shortlisted for the 6 best fanzines before the winner was drawn on the night.

 

The fanzine last won the award in 2015 before the merger of Football Supporters Federation and Supporters Direct (2019).

 

And it is with no small thanks to the fanzine contributors it can receive such accolades.

 

The Trust would like to congratulate Mike Harrison, the editor, and Phil Littlewood the layout man on his narrow boat, who have spent many hours in putting together all the efforts of its’ contributors for many a year. It is great to see the fanzine being amongst 6 of the best.

 

This year The City Gent was up against stiff opposition to WBR – Watford, United We Stand – Manchester United, Trevor Francis Tracksuits, and Dogma – Brighton & Hove Albion, and it was in fact ModMag, the fanzine of Charlton Athletic that won, and somehow disappeared from the cartoon image above! But congratulations to them for winning the top prize!


This year’s categories for the awards were: Climate Action Award, Club Podcast of the Year, Commentator of the Year, Fans for Diversity Award, Fan Media of the Year, Fanzine of the Year, Men’s Player of the Year, Newspaper of the Year, Non-League Community Award, Online Media of the Year, Podcast of the Year, TV/Radio Pundit of the Year, Radio Show of the Year, Special Achievement, Supporter Engagement Award, Supporter Liaison Officer of the Year, Women’s Player of the Year and Writer of the Year. To find out who won in all the categories and more click here.

The Fan Led Review - One Year On

26th November 2022

The FSA have been busy promoting the work of the Fan-led review...

 

Their new publication The Fan Led Review: One Year On is available to download and is essentially a condensed version of the Fan-led Review with a review of where it stands now. Whilst we know that the elite Clubs still oppose it, the message is that it shows how football would benefit from its recommendations – which have still not been implemented 12 months on.

 

There was a Parliamentary event the FSA ran to launch the publication that took place on the 15th November. It was well attended, with around 15 representatives of FSA-affiliated fan groups, while Tracey Crouch MP chaired and Sports Minister Stuart Andrew attended and answered questions from MPs, fans and journalists. The Guardian and Press Association were there, alongside Sky Sports News who interviewed the FSA’s CEO, Kevin Miles outside a rainy Parliament.

 

The FSA’s press release of the launch of the new publication is here, while Tracey Crouch’s Forward included in the document is here.

 

The chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Football Supporters, Ian Mearns MP has written to the new secretary of state, Michelle Donelan, responsible for football urging the Government to deliver on the recommendations of the Fan-led Review. See more here.

The Club Badge Survey

12th November 2022

The result of the Clubs’ survey is now widely known, that we are keeping the current Crest. The result of the survey can be seen here.


It was always going to be an ambitious plan to streamline the crest to fit into the current trends of global marketing consumption, which was what the ‘Have Your Say’ project was always about.


The Trust believes that the outcome reflects the majority of the Clubs’ supporters’ preference, and goes back to Trusts’ thinking that the crest, as it has been the official badge for the longest time in our modern history, is now part of the Clubs’ heritage, as is the home colours and name. Hats off to the Club though for honouring the result and consulting supporters.


The Trust brought out it’s own survey, because we feel that it is important to consult our valued members on such an emotive topic that all the generations of the Club’s support base, both young and old. And on the big subject matters such as the Club’s heritage issues, and including the location of the ground – Valley Parade, or the sale of the Club, Trust members, ideally, should be part of any clubs’ consultation process.


We were unfortunately a bit late in the day when we were able to release our survey as the last survey with the 3 crests was only open for less than a week and closed hours before we were able to get ours out. However, we would say it is still a good idea to fill it in as it also includes a comments section. Here you can put your thoughts about the process, the questions and so on. The survey is only open to members through the regular emails they receive, so if you are not a member, you can join here.

 

New members, shall receive the survey after completing the online membership form, but the survey will only be open for another week.


We will only share our findings with the Club if a significant amount of members take part. And we thank members who have already taken the time to complete it.

The AGM 2022 Brief Report

11th November 2022

The Trust would like to thank everyone who attended (mostly online) and we are pleased to inform members that for the first time in years, we achieved quoracy with having 22 attending on Skype, and in some cases there were two members in one attendees video.


There were always going to be some technological gremlins with using a free online video platform but we got there, and we had to battle with the background sounds in the pub, including dramatic music to Alan Carling’s Finance report, and we hope everyone could hear and see everything.


We got through the proceedings, which took less than an hour, and the key things to report are that we have now updated and amended our policy document (our rules) to the FSA’s Model Rules 2022 from the Supporters Direct (SD) Model Rules 2016.


The SD and FSF (Football Supporters Federation) merged in 2019 to become one body, the Football Supporters Association. SD was all about setting up Supporters Trusts, Rules, Supporter Ownership and Structured Dialogue. FSF was always about fan-initiated campaigns, generally to improve the matchday experience, and now they are one.


The amendments to the rules presented to the Annual General meeting represent temporary changes that accommodate the size of the Trust Board and membership arrangement as well as accounts.


We also approved the current Board, however, the overall emphasis of the AGM was that we need more people involved with the running of the Trust.



It is custom and practice to approve the minutes of this years meeting at next years AGM. The paperwork will now be returned to the Financial Conduct Authority for approval.

We thank, once again, all of you who attended on Wednesday evening

Report of the Trust's meeting with BCAFC

10th November 2022

On Monday 31st October 22, The Trust met with Ryan Sparks. The meeting was also attended by lead Supporter Liaison Officer (SLO), Marco Townson. Again as in June, the last time we met, the meeting was quite positive and constructive; The Trust gaining a better understanding of the club operations as a business and the Club’s insight to the Trusts interconnections with other Trusts and its affiliation to the FSA, the leading national organization for football supporters. 


Diving straight into it we discussed issues relating to the match day experiences of fans at VP:


Fanzones – Food and drink choices available for purchase update: There will be some more of a range available in the summer. 


Food and drink available on the concourse bars - it was noted that that Tiffin Stadium Catering, who the Club are in the second year of a 5-year contract with, have brought out paninis and pizza twists: The latter got a positive review on ‘Footy Scran’. See here.


The Trust raised that some of the food and drink available at smaller grounds was better; hot dogs at Harrogate and real ale at Barrow and Colchester, and they could be a unique selling point for a big club in this league, but the response was that it wasn’t ‘commercially viable’ at this time. 


Water stations - are something the Club are taking away to think about, however the Club did offer free water bottles and offer refills when we had the really hot weather. 

 

Supporter Liaison Officer (SLO) role – Marco made the point that the recommendations are only that and are non-binding. He correctly made the point that ideally it would be independent and a volunteer role for supporters, but disagreed with it being so, putting the case forward that an SLO needs to know all aspects of the Club’s departments to give fans the answers to their questions. 


The Trust asked of his opinion about the importance of having a visual presence. At present the Club is not able to do this but Marco is extending his team of SLO’s and for the moment all the names of the SLO’s are on the Club website and there is a supporter services are on the website as well as email address.


It is work in progress and the Trust and SLO’s can work to develop its role.

You can see the FSA’s SLO best practice guidance here.


EFL’s campaign on disorder and arrests and the Club’s Sanctions & Banning Order Policy – The Trust gave a brief overview of the EFL’s campaign, citing the name FFS (For Football’s Sake), but Ryan nor Marco liked the name.


The Trust reported that at the FSA’s Structured Dialogue meeting with the heads of the EFL and the EFL agreed with promoting restorative practice – education programmes and initiatives that can possibly change the behaviour of some supporters.


The FSA have been supporting elements of the EFL’s campaign, such as on pitch invasions and pyros with advice, and the Trust has been sharing that. See our most recent article from the beginning of this season here.


The Trust raised a good podcast program called The Anfield Wrap, and in this episode, it was about encouraging young lads who are drawn into lifestyles around football that include violence, drug and alcohol abuse and regular brushes with the law, to rethink that path from supporters involved in it. It’s on Spotify, called, ‘Paying The Price’. You can listen to it here.


Looking back at the Clubs’ own sanctions policies, and the Trust requested to see colleagues with the knowledge of these, and this was agreed.


It was advised that if supporters see or experience incidents of poor behaviour during, before or after game at the ground, please report it to the hotline when you see it on the confidential matchday helpline, 07949814243. This is only a texting service.


To follow up with the SLO team the dedicated email address is helpdesk@bradfordcityafc.com, and if you use the Bradford City AFC App and click the message icon in the bottom right, this has direct access to all of these resources as well as the ‘Kick It Out’ campaign.


Atmosphere and safe standing / railed seating – The Trust made the point that whilst the official atmosphere is in the North West Corner, supporters have voted with their feet to go back to the Kop. 


The atmosphere at Valley Parade has improved, largely as progress on the field of play has much improved and that is something to sing about. 


The Trust asked about the plans to have railed seating as we had discussed this at a previous structured dialogue meeting previously, and the plan still is to install in the North West Corner.  

The ‘North West KolleKtive’ as they like to be known had chosen that end last season as the atmosphere had been dying prior to that, but that reflected the poor football on offer to a large degree. At the same time however, the Club had put the time and effort to house the atmosphere in the North West Corner to trial it for safe standing – or railed seating for up to 800 railed seats. This may help fans understand why it is still the ‘official’ atmosphere end. You can find them on Twitter as North West Kollektive @NWK_BFD,


The Trust asked if we could meet with Paula Watson, Director of Operations who would no more about the detail of how the railed seating would be implemented. This agreed.


Reciprocal Deals – The Trust reported that they spoke to two Supporters groups for Swindon Town, as well as Colchester United Supporters Trust and all said that their Club Chairmen where not quite convinced of the reciprocal deals and that it was still work in progress. Just to add, the Trust had sighted Swindon and Colchester as the longest journeys this season in the League fixture calendar.


Ryan reported they too weren’t convinced of them, though understood the concept. The Trust asked about the £4 off voucher availability for City fans with tickets and it was City who had paid for that deal. The Trust commended the Club on that one.


Unemployed concessions – The Trust welcomed the Club offering free tickets to refugees and people who are homeless this season. Marco and Ryan said it would be difficult to prove. Ryan pointed out that Morrisons already give away 5,000 tickets per season, and the Club will be going into partnership with Mind, the mental health charity.


It was felt that the Club already do the cheapest tickets and there wasn’t going to be any further reductions. They have done some very good cup match ticket offers and are selling FA Cup 1st round tickets for the Harrogate home tie for £10.


The Club Badge – The Trust position is that we feel it is one of these key heritage features the Club shouldn’t touch such as the colours and the name. However we do except modernization for the purposes of publicity, print on merchandise etc. but we didn’t think that any new design would be too far off the original. The Trust board also felt, regarding the previous design offered could’ve been far stronger if not similar to our current one, and looked a bit Americanised.


Ryan reported that there would be 3 crests to vote on: a completely new one, and edited version of the proposal, and the current one, which would be dropped imminently.

Of course, that survey has now been and gone, with over 5,000 taking part, the results were revealed around tea time on Tuesday 8th November with option C - the current crest winning the majority vote, with 61%, followed by option B, the halfway house with 26%. And lastly option A was the improved original proposal with only 13% of the vote.


The outcome, from the Trust’s point of view, reflects the majority of the Clubs’ supporters’ preference, and goes back to Trusts’ thinking that the crest, as it has been the official badge for the longest time in our modern history, is now part of the Clubs’ heritage, as is the home colours and name. And it is great the Club honours this result. The result of the survey can be seen here.


EFL AGM and the Fan-Led Review – No further update. Ryan went to the EFL AGM and has no further better understanding of it.


We are expecting to see the government ‘white paper’ of the Review’s recommendations in November, but the Government has been pre-occupied with its internal affairs to be thinking of wider topics such as football.


Financial Performance – impact of energy cost on the short and medium term – We can report that energy costs have put the Club under pressure but it is still relatively comfortable and always strives for sustainability. First financial quarter performance was as expected and in line with budget. 


The survey regarding changing the Saturday Kick Off time to 1pm – The Trust felt the vote of 67% /33% in favour of bringing it to 1pm was because fans wanted to help ensure energy prices don’t impact too greatly and that fans would really prefer 3pm as it would be more cost effective for the Club – greater chance of supporters making long distance trips to Valley Parade, and so on. 


4,800 took part in the survey but the Club felt an earlier KO time would not be viable.


Provision of information - Financial figures to support discussion – There was no evidence of figures provided.


The Trust felt it may help to understand the Club finances by showing the core funding figures provided on the EPL (English Premier League) website that break them down into three sections for every EFL League Club. Ryan didn’t have an issue with this. The figures available are from 2019/20. Here is an explanation of how the EPL supports EFL Clubs. And here is the breakdown our Club receives.


Ownership – We asked if there were any long term plans such as buying the ground back or any changes to the lease. Ryan reported that the lease runs out in 2028 and there are no plans or changes to the agreement. 


There was reference to the Odsal ambitious plans. The Club are watching but nothing appears to be confirmed about them.


It was asked if there were any plans to the stadium such as widening stairs coming up to Burlington Road from the kop as it becomes quite a bottleneck when exiting the stadium post match. Not at the moment as there is no extra money coming in was the response. It was raised that there have been issues within the main stand in terms of narrower legroom within the seat rows in block E, but this has been reportedly fixed now.


It was also asked what his view about ownership regulations within the German Bundesliga as it is something that has inspired the Golden Share that is included in the Fan-Led Government Review of Football Governance. In the Bundesliga Clubs are owned 50% plus one by the fans. Although there is a loophole in this rule which could undermine this. Ryan agreed to pass this question on.


AOB


Membership and Loyalty Points - The Trust pulled a couple of points from the Supporters Board Minutes that reported that: 


“The Club is still going through a learning Curve and is determined to engage with supporters.

The Loyalty Scheme is not an away travel and ticketing scheme but has gone from nothing to something.” 


But the Trust felt that to a lot of supporters that is what it has become and there has been a lot of disquiet about it, and many have not taken up the Membership scheme. 


The Trust was reminded that every single away ticket has been available to season ticket holders after the limitations within the points categories, and over 1,000 have bought into the loyalty scheme already.


It was agreed that it would’ve created less upset if the Membership Scheme was ready and available before the start of the season. It was said that that was the intention but it got delayed due to technical reasons.


The Trust felt it was good that discussion with the Supporters Board, brought about the concession of awarding an extra 10 more loyalty points were awarded to away tickets, shortly after the membership announcement.


Fans Forum – It was asked if there were any plans to have one in January, and the response was it more likely to be before.

Trust AGM 2022 Reminder

31st October 2022

Our AGM is on Wednesday, 9th November, from 7pm, at Jacobs Well, near Bradford Interchange.

 

At the AGM you will be able to hear about the work of the Trust throughout the year, and you will be able to hear about the purpose of its policy motions. We encourage questions, discussion and debate.

 

This is your opportunity to make your voice be heard and contribute to making us stronger in terms of building the Trust membership and our finances, but we also want to influence the Club in securing it’s long term success and longevity, and bringing in supporter led initiatives along the way that improve the match day experience for all. You will get to hear about our achievements in this through our reports at the AGM.

 

The existing Trust Board would like to see new Trust Board Members that have new ideas and proposals that will broaden our reach.

 

Members who receive our regular emails will be able to download our Draft Agenda and Papers for the evening. Members interested in joining the Trust board can also download our nomination form via our regular emails.

 

For our AGM to be quorate, we need 20 Members in attendance. Only Members can vote. Become a Member and receive our regular emails, and support us financially by being a Patron Member. Supporters can join to be a member on the night.

 

The AGM will start at 7pm, so please arrive in good time to order a drink at the bar. We will be in the snug area of the pub and greet members at the bar from 6.30pm.

 

We understand that many of you will live across the country and further beyond, and therefore to encourage attendance we will have a hybrid meeting as in previous years, of members, in person, in the pub, or online video via Skype.

The Skype meeting can be joined by clicking here

Save the date - AGM 2022

24th October 2022

You are cordially invited to our Supporters’ Trust Annual General Meeting, to be held on Wednesday 9th November, from 7pm, at Jacobs Well, near Bradford Interchange

 

At the AGM you will be able to hear about the work of the Trust throughout the year, and you will be able to hear about the purpose of its policy motions. We encourage questions, discussion and debate.

 

Members who receive our regular emails will be able to download our Draft Agenda and Papers for the evening. Members interested in joining the Trust board can also download our nomination form via our regular emails.

 

If you would like to submit any Agenda items for the AGM or the Trust Board nomination form, the deadline for submissions is at the end of Wednesday 2nd of November. 

 

For our AGM to be quorate, we need 20 Members in attendance. Only Members can vote. Supporters can join to be a member on the night.

 

The AGM will start at 7pm, so please arrive in good time to order a drink at the bar. We will be in the snug area of the pub and greet members at the bar from 6.30pm.

 

We understand that many of you will live across the country and further beyond, and therefore to encourage attendance we will have a hybrid meeting as in previous years, of members, in person, in the pub, or online video via Skype.

The Skype meeting details is: https://join.skype.com/BRWtU4Jqthzh

Trust Has Successful 20th Anniversary Social

20th September 2022

On Saturday the 17th of September the Trust had its 20th Anniversary Social After the win over Stevenage.

 

Over 20 members dropped into the Jacob’s Well pub in Bradford to show their support, and it was a great evening of catching up with friends and colleagues, some of who have not been seen by the current number of activists for many years, and certainly not in this way.

 

There were inevitably some apologies for the event, but there was a general feeling that we should meet up again.

 

It was great to catch up with everyone and to remember key periods in the Trust’s history, namely the fundraising to save the Club and relationships with the Club and the local press at the time. There was a feeling of retelling some of those stories at some point in the near future. Long standing active member, Alan Carling, has done a great job in retelling our history that brings us up to date, but there is a lot of detail missed out that should be told it was felt.

 

So watch this space for more socials and more anecdotal accounts of the Trust's past.

 

Many thanks to all that attended, it is greatly appreciated.

Supporters Board Help Win Improvements to Club’s Loyalty Point Scheme Following The Launch Of Club’s Official Membership

19th September 2022

The Club’s Official Membership was launched on Friday 16th and it saw some criticism by supporters mainly around the 100 loyalty points awarded for the £35 cost of membership.

 

The Supporters Board at teatime on the same day released a statement on its Facebook group and Twitter, saying that it wanted to provide reassurance to supporters as an independent body that it would be raising the concerns voiced in relation to the allocation of loyalty points as part of the scheme. See here for the full statement.

 

The Statement also wanted to clear up some popular misconceptions about the Supporters Board’s links to the Club and our collective input into this decision.

 

The Trust agrees that, as the statement says, ‘It is worth clarifying that whilst the club do involve the board as a sounding board for many ideas and initiatives the criteria of this membership scheme wasn’t one of the topics discussed.’

 

And we agree that, ‘the Club has greatly improved its approach to communication and involvement with fans over the last few years so we are sure that the issues raised will be received and responded to.’

 

On Sunday 18th the Club confirmed changes to the Loyalty Scheme, see here, which means that that points for away matches from our away fixture to Salford on Saturday October 15th will increase from 10 points to 20, which will equal home match points, and that points will also be added retrospectively for all away fixtures so far this season.

 

The Club have demonstrated that they have taken supporters feedback seriously and from the Trust’s point of view this is a very positive achievement, which is shared by the Supporters Board. In the Club’s Loyalty Scheme Update, Ryan Sparks, the Clubs Chief Executive mentions the Supporters Board, bringing concerns and queries to the Club’s attention, and, adds that these changes come ahead of a survey that will be out later this year, which again, both the Supporters Board and ourselves welcome.

 

The trust welcomes the further Supporters Board statement prior to the Club putting out its update, saying, ‘We have since had some really helpful discussions with the club about these concerns and they understand the views raised.’

 

It continued, ‘we are pleased this has evolved into another example of the fans and club working together. As a Supporters Board we welcome these changes and also the spirit in which they have been achieved.’ For the statement in full, see here.

 

Whilst this isn’t perfect as there are still issues around the Official Membership, predominantly around the 100 points, we think the concession of doubling the away match loyalty points to 20 and back dating all the points for all the away tickets bought from the start of the season is the best that can be achieved at this point in time and we can air out issues of the Official Membership at the next Supporters Board meeting we have with the Club.

Reminder - Trust’s 20th Anniversary Social This Saturday After The Match

14th September 2022

The Trust has its 20th Anniversary Social this Saturday on the 17th September after the match. All Trust members and their friends and families are welcome.

 

It is 20 years since initial formation, out of our Club being in Crisis, and thankfully since those heady days of rallying the supporters in 2004 to rise money to save our Club, it has more financially stable foundations, for now that is.

 

To mark 20 years of our formation, we think it is high time for a reunion of Trust board members and supporters of the Trust over the years.

 

We know there have been many volunteer Trustees, supporters, and well wishers over the years and we would like to invite as many Trust members and supporters new and experienced hands as possible to come down to Jacobs Well, a well known pub for its real ale, on the 17th of September, straight after the Stevenage home game, to come and meet up for the first time or catch up and maybe relive some tails, whilst raising a glass to our continued existence.

 

If you are in touch with others who have been active within the Trust, please let them and their families know about this.

 

It will be fantastic if you can make it.

 

To read about the history of the Trust please see here.

 

With best wishes,

 

From the Trust Board

Crowd Disorder and Pyro's

30th August 2022

It has been the topic of debate in the media and across all levels of football, after the first half of last season saw a rise in arrests and incidents of football related crime.

 

The pitch invasions at some of the play-off matches at the end of the season sparked the debate again. For many seasoned football fans, we know that hooliganism had never gone away, it just got better at hiding itself away from football grounds, but, since Covid restrictions lifted, there has been a more public expression of poor behavior from. For well-travelled Bradford fans, it has never been completely hidden from view, and increased incidents, and banning orders have moved the Club to put out a statement about it on the 19th July.

 

The debate about what to do about crowd disorder has been a topic of discussion at our FSA EFL Supporter Network meetings. At the most recent one in May, an issue of poor recruitment and retention of stewards was raise as well as pyrotechnics, persistent standing in seated areas and drug taking were frequent issues. It was said that clubs introducing safe standing areas could significantly reduce persistent standing issues. Minors not accompanied by adults on coaches was another potential issue raised. Also, looking at positive sanctions and education programmes with clubs was raised as a potential way of attempting to reduce incidents.

 

The Trust has raised issues with our Club’s Banning and Ejections Policy. See our last meeting with the Club on 6th June, citing Spurs, Man Utd and Liverpool as to having the most positive example.

 

Discussing disorder at football

At the EFL/FSA Supporter Engagement Meeting, held in 14th June, when discussing issues around disorder, the EFL had reported it had been on the Agenda at their AGM and Clubs have acknowledged their role to work with their local Safety Advisory Groups (SAG’s) on a holistic approach that implements change and drives improvements. They are also working to launch a new stewards training package to improve standards and minimise police involvement at games. And they have worked with clubs to encourage fans to behave responsibly, more recently launching a ‘For Football’s Sake ‘ campaign, with the core message of reinforcing the potential repercussions of anti-social behavior, was delivered across all 72 EFL Clubs.

 

They say Clubs will allocate resources to address incidents using education, and rehabilitation as well as a range of sanctions, and said they want to inform and educate to protect the collective reputation of the League and their member clubs, and that discussions have started with the EFL Trust to work with the League, it’s clubs and club community organisations.

 

The FSA’s response was they were generally supportive of messaging to address poor behaviour, and promote positive behaviour, and will work with the EFL to amplify those messages.

 

They reported an increase in anecdotal reports of poor behaviour at non-league games, traditionally not seen, suggesting this reflects a change in society generally. It was also suggested that some individuals believe they are reinforcing their identity through anti-social actions.

 

The role social media can play in driving these negative behaviours must be considered when seeking solutions. It was noted that, clubs will only be able to have an impact on behaviour at a local level with their fans if they have a positive relationship in place. Collaborative work between fans and clubs at Blackpool, Hull and Sunderland were all outlined.

 

Delving into human side of football disorder

There is a very interesting and important audio documentary by the Anfield Wrap, that may encourage young lads who are drawn into lifestyles around football that include violence, drug and alcohol abuse and regular brushes with the law, to rethink that path. The documentary, on Spotify is called, ‘Paying The Price For Passion’.

 

Pyros, pitch invasions and new measures to deter disorder

Last May, the FSA put out some information about pyro’s and the law to help supporters think about the consequences of their potential actions before taking them to a stadium. More recently, they have put out guidance for fans to be aware of the risk of invading the pitch – the stands are for supporters and the pitch is for the players.

 

It is worth noting, that there is an unwritten behavioural pact that we all benefit from – stay off the pitch and crowd management restrictions will be much lighter touch. If that pact breaks down football will be worse for us all as rules will tighten.

 

There is also a Joint Statement from the FA, Premier League, EFL and FSA. This joint statement explains that the football authorities have brought in tighter measures ahead of this 22/23 season that includes stronger sanctions to tackle the increased anti-social and criminal behaviours recently seen within football grounds and underline the importance of a safe matchday environment.

The Trust's 20th Anniversary Social

24th August 2022

It is 20 years since initial formation, out of our Club being in Crisis, and thankfully since those heady days of rallying the supporters in 2004 to rise money to save our Club, it has more financially stable foundations, for now that is.

 

To mark 20 years of our formation, we think it is high time for a reunion of Trust board members and supporters of the Trust over the years.

 

We know there have been many volunteer Trustees, supporters, and well wishers over the years and we would like to invite as many Trust members and supporters new and experienced hands as possible to come down to Jacobs Well, a well known pub for its real ale, on the 17th of September, straight after the Stevenage home game, to come and meet up for the first time or catch up and maybe relive some tails, whilst raising a glass to our continued existence.

 

If you are in touch with others who have been active within the Trust, please let them and their families know about this.

 

Please get in touch with us here or by email to hello@bantamstrust.co.uk if you can make it so we can get an idea for the pub how many will be coming, as it will be busy post match. It will be fantastic if you can make it.

 

To read about the history of the Trust please see here.

 

With best wishes,

 

From the Trust Board

Crypto Currency in Football

22nd August 2022

It’s been hard not to notice the explosion of crypto currency deals across football, as club execs and commercial departments chase football’s latest gold rush.

 

In December 2021, our Club rejected an offer from WAGMI United who now own Crawley Town.

 

Reflecting the increase in crypto interest in football, the FSA’s AGM 2022 , passed a motion on it proposed by West Ham United Supporters Trust and backed by many other Trusts, including Bantams Supporters Trust.

 

The FSA has put together a guide to the key crypto terms here.

 

Background

Crypto currencies involved in football promote ‘fan token’ as a route to fan ownership.

 

Socios.com have been the biggest players in the fan token space in European football, signing deals with multiple Premier League and European clubs and even UEFA itself.

 

They first entered English football in 2019, when they struck up an ill-fated partnership with West Ham United. Supporters pushed back against the deal, with a coalition of fan groups launching the “Don’t pay to have a say” campaign – arguing that supporter engagement should not be monetised at all, let alone through a then unregulated crypto currency recruitment scheme.

 

Supporter protests caused the club to end the partnership early, without a single fan token (the ‘digital asset’ supporters could buy to vote on issues and events) ever being issued.

 

Despite that setback, Socios.com re-emerged in the summer of 2021 signing deals with multiple Premier League clubs – arguing they offered clubs and supporters a novel way to engage with each other: supporters download their app, buy some fan tokens with the crypto currency Chiliz and use those tokens to vote on polls at their clubs.

 

Supporter groups have been less than impressed – criticising their clubs over the lack of consultation before signing up, and pushing out misleading marketing to members about the schemes.

 

So far these votes held via Socios.com tokens have been restricted to actions such as renaming training pitches or picking a player for an Instagram takeover. Take up of Socios.com’s fan tokens at Premier League clubs has been extremely low and participation in its votes has been underwhelming – with tokens bought mostly by external crypto-investors rather than ordinary fans.

 

Unsurprisingly the value of all of these Premier League clubs’ tokens on the crypto market has crashed since their launch.

 

It seems crypto-based fan token partnerships are either trying to monetise trivial matters that could easily be done without the blockchain on the one hand or they are inserting financial barriers into genuine supporter engagement on the other. Neither is a good look.

 

Crypto takeovers

As we know crypto firm WAGMI United took over Crawley Town in April after interest in Bradford City turned sour for them, becoming the first of the 92 professional clubs in the country to be owned outright by a crypto group.

 

WAGMI United, an acronym of “we’re all gonna make it”, have since raised £3m for the League Two club by launching their own non-fungible token (NFT) in collaboration with Adidas – selling 9,000 of the digital assets which were priced around £350 each at the time of the initial launch.

 

The price of the NFT has since fallen to roughly £230-250.

 

Crawley co-chairman Johnson told a Twitter live chat: “We’re going to offer via this technology unprecedented access into the way a club functions day to day, week to week.

“Whether it’s deciding what position we put funds towards in the transfer window or where we’re putting funds for events.

“If you have this NFT you’re going to have a say in all the big-picture items for a football club that’s trying to tell a story to get to the Premier League.”

 

At the time of writing NFT holders have contributed to one significant decision already – which position Crawley Town should target for summer recruitment. 52.4% of NFT holders voted to target the recruitment of a midfielder. No breakdown of how many NFT holders voted, or where the voting power lies, has been published by WAGMI United.

 

This is the first instance we can recall of an allegedly supporter-owned club directly consulting fans about strategic on-field matters. It is not the norm for community-owned clubs.

 

WAGMI United say that NFT holders will get special input and voting on the future of Crawley Town, but have not published a detailed framework on how and when these votes are to take place.

 

Currently these decisions are done on the fly via WAGMI United’s Discord server and the NFTs do not grant an ownership stake as you would see with membership of a traditional supporter-owned club.

 

So is it fan ownership?

When we talk about supporter and community ownership we require:

·      A minimum of 50% +1 of the voting rights of the club to be controlled collectively by a democratic entity which has an open and inclusive membership based on one member, one vote with no substantial barriers to participation as a voting member.

·      Profits are reinvested back into the club as opposed to being distributed to shareholders.

·      The club is committed to running as a sustainable business.

 

WAGMI United’s model would not qualify Crawley Town as supporter-owned in our eyes.

 

What next for fans?

On the back of FSA members passing the motion at their AGM in July, they will be writing to the major football authorities – the FA, EFL and Premier League – for their thoughts on the possible introduction of regulatory standards of crypto currency in football.

 

The FSA will also begin a political lobbying campaign, raising the issue with MPs and legislators starting with the APPG for Football Supporters.

 

Beyond that, the FSA will be developing an awareness campaign to help fans understand the issues at play – including resources that supporter groups can take to their members.

Trust Close Season Update

28th July 2022

On the eve of the new 2022/23 season, Bradford City is in a strong / positive position. On the field, the Club have signed 14 new players, predominantly on free transfers. Jamie Walker, from Hearts, was first signed on loan, and now re-signed with City as a free transfer for at least 2 seasons. Other significant newbies to the Club are Richard Smallwood, from Hull City, Harry Chapman, Blackburn, and goalkeeper Harry Lewis from Southampton. Also, two loanee’s from Huddersfield Town, Kian Harratt and Romoney Krichlow may be worth looking out for. We wish all the Club’s new signings to do well, and wish those that have departed, including three times winner of the Trust Young Player of the Year, Elliot Watt all the best in their future careers.

 

With a Club record in League Two of 14,000 plus season-ticket holders coming through the turnstiles, lets hope Mark Hughes and his coaching staff can get the best out of his side and keep fans entertained.

 

Off the pitch, the Mark Hughes factor has seen an increase in sponsorship for the Club and has seen record home shirt sales, produced by Macron, that came out on the 17th June following a ‘lucrative’ six-year deal with the Italian shirt manufacturer in May. Perhaps, the unconventional black and white striped away shirt will not have won over all fans, came out more recently.

 

Activities of the Trust

 

Concourse stalls

We will continue to have a presence on the concourse of the main stand and will do about 11 stalls on Saturdays ahead of the 3pm Kick Offs including Good Friday. We will be ready with resources to sell, including new retro adult and baby scarves as well as new button and enamel badges. Our first stall will be at home to Walsall on September 3rd. With larger numbers of supporter set to attend this season we will always be looking to engage with new people to explain what we are about and recruit with the aid of leaflets and merchandise, of which sales can help improve our financial resources. And of course we are there for supporters and existing supporters, whether you are making an enquiry or just catching up and showing your support, which many of you did last season.

 

Retro shirt sales

Earlier this year following agreeing a working Partnership with Chablais Sport / World Retro, we agreed to broaden our range in products, see here if you haven’t seen them yet. We are ordering a new set of Trust info/join leaflets to give out with the current up to date advert for them which you can see on our website. And we have given these leaflets a bit of revamp.

 

The Trust Board

We are always looking to develop the Trust Board to extend our activities and accomplish more things. One of the ways we are hoping to encourage this is by inviting members to a Board meeting to be acquainted with us, and get a feel for what we do in person. We have done this on two occasions and will continue inform members of the meetings in advance of them coming round through our regular emails members receive.

 

Our AGM 2022

We have set the date to Wednesday September 9th, from 7pm. Venue to be arranged. You can formally nominate yourself to be a Supporters Trust Board member by filling in this years’ form, here.

 

Sponsorship

We have also agreed to sponsor an Academy player as well as a player from the Women’s team. Details will be out shortly.

 

Bradford City Community Foundation

Bradford City Women AFC are looked-after by Bradford City Community Foundation, and the Chair person of the Club is Qasim Akhtar. Qasim is very much involved in the Community Foundation and the Trust will be meeting him in September to hopefully be able to work jointly on community projects.

 

20 years since the Trust was founded

Yes, it was around this time in 2002 since the Trust was formed after we reached the dizzy heights of the Premier League under Geoffrey Richmond, when his overspending came home to roost shortly after the collapse of ITV digital. We were formed after a public meeting organised at the Playhouse where a spokesperson for Supporters Direct, then the lead organization for the development of Supporters Trusts successfully encouraged a number of willing volunteers to found a Supporters Trust for Bradford City fans, modeled on a co-operative society that still exists today. Our longest serving Trust Board member, now serving as our Treasurer, Alan Carling wrote an article recently for our website tracing our beginnings, charting our historical progress whilst at the same time plotting the Clubs’ struggles, stability, moments of brilliance on the pitch, setbacks and challenges up to the present. You can read it here.

 

Reason to celebrate

We think 20 years of existence is a good reason to celebrate and we would like to contact as many Trust friends and colleagues who have played a role in our organization over the years to see if we can all have a get together somewhere in Bradford. The social would be open to all members and will be hopefully organized before the end of 2022.

 

Structured Dialogue meetings with Ryan Sparks & reciprocal deals

The Trust is due to meet with Ryan Sparks on Monday 19th September. The Trust has been looking at the possibility of ‘reciprocal deals’ for one off cheaper match day prices for both sets of traveling fans that match day ticket buying home supporters can benefit from too. At the last meeting we had, on June 6th, see here, Ryan thought those long distance journeys from fans traveling to West Yorkshire on a Tuesday night would be more justified to gain from any one off cheap deal, and was happy for us to research this within our FSA, EFL Leagues One and Two Network.

 

We have 7 long distance trips south bound this season, but Swindon Town came out top where both fixtures are on Tuesday nights. For our fixture with Colchester United, we travel there on a Tuesday but they come up here on a Saturday. We have made contact with representative supporter organisations for both Swindon and Colchester. Swindon Town Supporters groups are approaching their club and Colchester United Supporters Association have advised us to email a couple of named contact at their club directly, and we have. This is where it is at for the moment. We travel to Colchester on Tuesday 16th August, which doesn’t leave much time and the return fixture is in March. Swindon Town make the trip up north on Tuesday 25th October and our return trip up is in April.

 

With the cost of living going up, many supporters would take advantage of the occasional reciprocal deal ticket prices of £10 to £15 to watch a league game, or FA Cup match.

 

The FSA and it’s affiliated Supporters Trusts have a history of campaigning for more affordable match day ticket prices, through the Twenty’s Plenty campaign and through reciprocal deals particularly in the Championship where match day tickets are more expensive than Leagues One and Two.

 

City offer free tickets to Refugees

Staying with tickets we are pleased to see that the Club have taken the initiative to offer free tickets to refugees during this coming season – as part of Refugee Week, see more here. The war in Ukraine has been dominating the media invoking a humanitarian response from ordinary people, however, there is conflict and crisis across the world and we feel this is a positive initiative across Bradford’s diverse communities that will make them feel welcome.

 

Crowd disorder

It has been the topic of debate in the media and across all levels of football, after the first half of last season saw a rise in arrests and incidents of football related crime. The pitch invasions at some of the play-off matches at the end of the season sparked the debate again. For many seasoned football fans, we know that hooliganism had never gone away, it just got better at hiding itself away from football grounds, but since Covid restrictions lifted, there has been a more public expression of poor behavior. For well-travelled Bradford fans, it has never been completely hidden from view, and increased incidents, and banning orders have moved the Club to put out a statement about it.  

 

The debate about what to do about crowd disorder has been a topic of discussion at our FSA EFL Supporter Network meetings. At the most recent one in May, an issue of poor recruitment and retention of stewards was raise as well as pyrotechnics, persistent standing in seated areas and drug taking were frequent issues. It was said that clubs introducing safe standing areas could significantly reduce persistent standing issues. Minors not accompanied by adults on coaches was another potential issue raised. Also, looking at positive sanctions and education programmes with clubs was raised as a potential way of attempting to reduce incidents.

 

The Trust has raised issues with our Club’s Banning and Ejections Policy. See our last meeting with the Club on 6th June, citing Spurs, Man Utd and Liverpool as to having the most positive example.

 

At the EFL/FSA Supporter Engagement Meeting, held in 14th June, when discussing issues around disorder, the EFL had reported it had been on the Agenda at their AGM and Clubs have acknowledged their role to work with their local Safety Advisory Groups (SAG’s) on a holistic approach that implements change and drives improvements. They are also working to launch a new stewards training package to improve standards and minimise police involvement at games. And they have worked with clubs to encourage fans to behave responsibly, more recently launching a ‘For Football’s Sake ‘ campaign, with the core message of reinforcing the potential repercussions of anti-social behavior, was delivered across all 72 EFL Clubs.

 

They say Clubs will allocate resources to address incidents using education, and rehabilitation as well as a range of sanctions, and said they want to inform and educate to protect the collective reputation of the League and their member clubs, and that discussions have started with the EFL Trust to work with the League, it’s clubs and club community organisations.

 

The FSA’s response was they were generally supportive of messaging to address poor behaviour, and promote positive behaviour, and will work with the EFL to amplify.

 

They reported an increase in anecdotal reports of poor behaviour at non-league games, traditionally not seen, suggesting this reflects a change in society generally. It was also suggested that some individuals believe they are reinforcing their identity through anti-social actions.

 

The role social media can play in driving these negative behaviours must be considered when seeking solutions. It was noted that, clubs will only be able to have an impact on behaviour at a local level with their fans if they have a positive relationship in place. Collaborative work between fans and clubs at Blackpool, Hull and Sunderland were all outlined.

 

Last May, the FSA put out some information about pyro’s and the law to help supporters think about the consequences of their potential actions before taking them to a stadium. More recently, they have put out guidance for fans to be aware of the risk of invading the pitch – the stands are for supporters and the pitch is for the players. There is also a Joint Statement from the FA, Premier League, EFL and FSA.

 

FSA AGM 16th July 2022

This year it was held at AFC Wimbledon’s relatively new Plough Lane ground.

One of the motions we supported was submitted from West Ham United Supporters Trust on ‘Cryptocurrency in Football’. As we all know, our Club rejected an offer from WAGMI United in December 2021, who now own Crawley Town. The motion calls on the FSA is to develop a plan of action to address the proliferation of these schemes across football. It notes that cryptocurrencies are a high-risk investment product not currently regulated in the UK, and basically wants them monitored and regulated.

The motion was carried unanimously.

There were 3 other motions passed unanimously. They were on:

  • Transgender athletes
  • Participation of young people
  • Merger of Football Supporters Europe & Supporters Direct Europe

You can find out more of the detail of the crypto currency motion and the other three, as well as the details of the FSA elections to positions within the organization and the Networks here.

 

If you like what you’ve read and would like to join, simply click here, or if you’d like to get involved, you can by email us at hello@bantamstrust.co.uk.

Government has confirmed approval for EPL and EFL Championship Clubs can introduce standing for 2022/23

13th July 2022

Newcastle United, Peterborough United, Brentford, QPR and Wolves will join Cardiff City, Chelsea, Man City, Man United and Tottenham in offering licensed safe standing areas for both home and away fans.

 

Wembley Stadium will also offer a “small licensed standing area” for fans at domestic games this coming season.

 

The initial five clubs had already taken part in an ‘early adopters’ trial that began in January of this year where the Sports Ground Safety Authority (SGSA) carried out research.

 

The SGSA said the latest stadiums had been selected following an application process which was open to all grounds covered by the all-seater policy.

 

“Strict conditions have been met, including enhanced use of CCTV, improved steward training and fans being strictly limited to ‘one person, one space’. Clubs have also engaged with fans as part of their application process,” said the SGSA.

 

Positive impact

A final report on last season’s Government-commissioned trial concluded that the installation of barriers or rails in areas of persistent standing in seated areas delivered a positive impact on spectator safety and improved fans’ matchday experience in both home and away sections.

 

The report recommended that clubs should be given the opportunity to implement licensed standing areas as soon as possible.

The research also found that “there is no evidence to date that the introduction of licensed standing areas has led to an increase in standing elsewhere in stadia” – backing the argument that standing areas increase choice and can benefit all fans.

 

What does the FSA and Trust think?

Match-going supporters know the benefits of safe standing are enormous, with better atmospheres and more choice for fans, whether they prefer to sit or stand.

 

We’ve always made the case that football clubs should be able to talk to their fanbase and work together to find the ideal mix of seating and standing at every club.

 

That’s now possible and it’s no surprise at all that more clubs are already looking to join last season’s early adopters and install their own standing areas.

 

We’ve been campaigning for safe standing areas for decades now – this is a huge victory for supporters’ groups and all the activists who made it happen.

Report of the Trust's meeting with BCAFC

14th June 2022

On Monday 6th June 22, The Trust met with Ryan Sparks. It was quite informative for both parties. The Trust is quite positive that we can assist with work that can benefit the Club from experiences of other Supporters Trusts within our network, with additional help from our colleagues at FSA towers.

 

Diving straight into it we discussed:

 

Fanzones – Of the one situated by the Kop, it was said that there will be improvements on what will be on offer in terms of snacks, food and drink, but nothing specific was revealed.

 

From the start of the new season, it is expected a family orientated fanzone will be ready at the BEAP Community Partnership Sport Centre very near the Hollywell Ash Lane.

 

Location of the atmosphere area this coming season – This will continue where it is. It was agreed that last season, the atmosphere, in terms of the singing, chanting etc. had never really been tested except on few occasions, and it was commented by the Trust, that providing we see success on the field, we will see it rivaled by the upper tier of the Kop. Ryan was asked if he had seen a petition for the atmosphere area to be in the Kop that had been on social media. He hadn’t seen it.

 

Disorder and arrests this season / Sanctions & Banning Order Policy – Ryan reported that disorder and arrests had been a significant problem home and away last season and there were up to a dozen supporters banned. He continued that it is a continuing problem – citing some of the pitch invasions over the course of the play-offs. Ryan doesn’t believe City supporters would ever act in such a way and is confident that flares would never be used by home supporters, given the club’s history and the impact that would have on thousands of fans.

 

It is worth noting that this issue has been discussed amongst trusts at recent FSA EFL Network meetings. Bantams Supporters Trust had conducted some independent research on ways to improve the Club’s Sanctions and Banning Order Policy in a way that makes the sanctions and the process of our Club’s policy clearer. We said the policy presented itself like the Club does have a problem with disorder and it is a little law and order heavy. We cited Spurs, Man Utd and Liverpool as to having the best example templates.


It was requested that we send these examples to him citing brief points on what the Club needs to improve on its own policies.

 

Match day experience of fans home and away – It was asked from the Clubs’ surveys, how supporters felt about the match day experience at home and what they thought of the services available, such as concourse catering for example. Ryan reported that the Club had achieved EFL Family Excellence, one of 65 clubs to receive it for Season 21/22 – improving the match day experience for youngsters and their families. Ryan also pointed to the fan engagement index for the season 20/21 for the Clubs’ climb up the table to 28 points, from 86th place two seasons ago, referring to as well a relatively new Club website supporter services, that fans can access.

 

Ryan also said of the catering on the concourse, they are in their 1st year of a 6 year contract and there have been some teething issues but they are conducting a review with a view to further improving the range of offers in terms of food and drink.

 

Also, with regards to accessing tickets during the week, fans will be able to buy, pick up and collect at the shop on Valley Parade. On match days, supporters will be able to access the box office on Burlington Street.

 

He said in terms of away fans experience there wasn’t any info collated but said that fans do send in their experiences, albeit usually when it has been bad.

 

Supporter Liaison Officer (SLO) role – The Trust explained broadly what the FSA’s recommended best practice of what the role should be like; that chiefly, an SLO should be the fans’ point of contact for both home and away match days, having a visible presence on match days with stewards with police briefed on their role, being the conduits between Club and fans, be familiar with all fans groups and the fan-base in general, and have an understanding of life as a match-going fan. It was also cited to have a clear job description – that includes the reporting process and where SLO’s fit into the organisational structure / chart.

 

The Trust agreed to pass on the information to the Club.

 

Ryan reported that Marco Townson, the SLO at the Club will be leading a small team of SLO’s in the forthcoming season, and he has been present at a recent Supporters Board meeting. He is accessible on the Club website and social media channels and home matches, which is a positive start.

 

The FSA host the largest supporter-led awards night in the UK and one of the categories every year is the best SLO.

 

Away match tickets – In this segment a suggestion about a ticketing exchange system could be used if fans had bought tickets and maybe couldn’t go but wanted to sell it on. Ryan felt that this would only be beneficial if the Club were selling out so that demand was outstripping the available number of seats.

 

Home match day tickets - special offers discounts and concessions – The Trust raised the EFL’s regulations on promotions and discounts of tickets, citing there can be up to a maximum of 4 discounted or special promotion matches in one promotion made available to supporters of the home club, and they must also be available to on a similar basis to visiting supporters.

 

The Club did a 3 for two matches offer for over Christmas last season where 450 took up the offer, and the Club may look at that again. Ryan explained the Club had asked if the opposite number clubs wanted to run this scheme with their own supporters, but they declined and they were happy to have our Club operate the offer on their own.

 

The Trust asked whether reciprocal deals would be available for both home and away supporters for single match day prices at a cheaper rate to what the match day prices are now. Ryan suggested this might be beneficial for away fans on long distance journeys on a Tuesday night perhaps. The Trust was in acceptance of this suggestion. Ryan pointed out however that too many cheap ‘quid a game’ matches could undermine the affordable season ticket offer.

 

There maybe scope for some work then trialing out maybe two or three cheap match day ticket offers. The Trust is in a good position to find receptive fellow Trusts that would be willing to encourage their clubs to participate in reciprocal deals of this nature.

 

Fan Led-Review – An Independent Regulator of English Football – The Trust led off on this one with the Independent Regulator of English Football (IREF) angle.

 

As part of the recommendations of the Government, Fan-led Review into Football Governance, the Government is establish a new independent regulator (IREF) based upon specialist business regulations adapted to suit the football industry – this would come in the form of an array of selected people from different commercial and legal backgrounds and would involve supporter representatives.

The IREF would operate a licensing system for the professional men’s game.

 

Although the IREF would underpin every aspect of the game, here are some of the key areas you would expect it to be involved in, providing a licensed:


  • Financial regulation
  • New ownership and directors tests
  • New corporate governance code to support long-term future of the game
  • Equality, Diversity and Inclusion action plans
  • Supporter Engagement would be a licensed condition whereby Clubs consult with their key stakeholders – the supporters and key decisions taken through a Shadow Board – we have an embryo of this in the form of the Supporters Board
  • There is a strong case for additional financial contributions from the Premier League (PL) to support the future of the football pyramid. A proposal recommended is by creating a ‘Solidarity Transfer Levy paid by the top-flight on players from overseas or other PL Clubs
  • Women’s football – equal parity to the men’s game, and give own dedicated review guaranteeing its future
  • Players’ welfare – needs to be better protected. Provision of mental health, care and support

 

We are expecting a government ‘white paper’ of the Review’s recommendations produced this summer, and we may see these recommendations voted in parliament next year.

 

There was a discussion about the recommendations, especially the PL’s financial contributions to this, if indeed there will be any, as Ryan had reservations about this aspect of it, in a sense that he feels that if the PL offered more money than they do already, it would be likely that clubs dependent on owners pockets in the lower leagues would spend it on players in the race to catch up with spenders that have a sounder financial footing and risk endangering themselves. This may well be what would happen now, as football is run today, however, the Trusts response to this theory would be that the independent regulator role would be to ensure that struggling clubs would spend wisely and support them make sound business plans and that part of any future redistribution of wealth would ensure a healthier competition with a reduced financial disparity between the richest and the poorest, which is where we are at the moment. It is not a level playing field, which is why the review of football governance has taken place.

 

The last lap of the meeting covered key standing items:

Financial Performance – There was no new information to report other than what is in the publicized financial statement. The Trust noted it welcomed the report produced by the Club’s Director and Chartered Accountant, Alan Biggin and we put out a Statement promoting the report earlier in the year.

 

Provision of information - financial figures to support discussion eg: EFL /EPL financial support during Covid – Ryan did report that the EFL /PL had provided the Club with £600,000 as Covid Support when the Club suffered £800,000 loses.

 

Ownership – There was no new developments with Gordon Gibb relating to the stadium

 

Ownership / Club structure – There is no new change to the ownership and in terms of the Club structure Ryan as the CEO heads his staff team developing the Club strategies whilst representing the interests of the owner, Stefan Rupp, whom he is in regular discusses with, but there is no change here either.


Government to support expansion of licensed standing areas next season

7th June 2022

The sports minister on the 24th May announced that the Government is “minded to support the wider roll-out of licensed standing areas” for the start of next season.

 

Since January, five clubs – Cardiff City, Chelsea, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur – have been operating licensed standing areas in designated rail-seated and seated sections for home and away fans.

 

The Sports Minister Nigel Huddleston said that number would expand with a wider roll-out of licensed standing that would allow Premier League and Championship clubs who have met strict conditions to introduce standing areas from the start of the 2022-23 season.

 

Huddleston’s statement to Parliament explained that the Sports Ground Safety Authority’s (SGSA) report into the early-adopters shows many benefits to standing sections and the positive safety impact. Read more about that initial report here.

 

There is a further research study from 2019-20 looking at The Safe Management of Persistent Standing in Seated Areas at Football Stadia published by the SGSA (2021) here. 

 

It is actually five years since the prospect of safe standing being introduced at English football grounds moved closer, after the government body responsible for ground safety SGSA, granted a request from the EFL to permit rail seating in 21 grounds that are not subject to all-seater requirements.

 

A letter was sent by the EFL’s then chief executive, Shaun Harvey, to clubs, which, revealed that the SGSA has agreed “to establish a process” whereby rail seating such as the type used in Germany’s Bundesliga and at Celtic Park can be introduced, essentially relaxing the regulations for Leagues One and Two to be able to adopt railed seating. Shrewsbury was the first EFL league club to adopt this in 2018.

 

It’s pretty much, now up to each club, in conjunction with its local Safety Advisory Group (SAG), to decide what facilities suit their needs. The FSA believes that fans should be part of that process and represented on local SAGs. The SGSA also supports the FSA’s call for such supporter engagement at a local level.

Don't miss out on getting your 2022/23 affordable season ticket

2nd June 2022

The Frozen early-bird ticket offer of £198 for another season still represents good value when everything else is going up. Ensure you guarantee your place at Valley Parade to hopefully (touch wood) enjoy a rollercoaster ride of excitement throughout the season’s 22/23 campaign.

 

But be quick! The days are counting down until the club's early-bird offer ends. 

You have until 11.59PM ON SUNDAY JUNE 19. 

 

GET YOURS HERE

The Minute Silence at Valley Parade - May 7, 2022

20th May 2022

Bantams Supporters Trust got in touch with our Trust colleagues from Carlisle Official Supporters Club, recently about the actions of a minority of the Carlisle United Supporters during the minute silence at our last home match of the season.

 

They sent us this statement below, which was part of their communications to their members.


"CUOSC condemn any actions to deliberately disrupt the minutes' silence at Valley Parade on May 7.
 
There have been reports of a Carlisle fan chanting during the silence but the exact circumstances are disputed.
 
We would remind any supporter that if the tragic fire on May 11, 1985 had taken place at Brunton Park, we would expect visiting fans to respect a minute's silence under those circumstances."

 

Our colleagues have also said that they would follow up with the club via their board representatives to see what, if any action is being taken to identify the perpetrators.

The winner of the Young Player Award is

13th May 2022

We would like to thank all of you who voted for the Supporters Trusts’ Young Player of the Year 2021/22.

 

The winner was of course, Elliot Watt, and he was your top young player last season as well. We would also like to give a special thanks to Justin Brett, representing the Trust, who gave the award to young Watt.

 

As we are a part of the Supporters Board, this year, we were in that category of awards along with East Bierley Bantams, Bingley Bantams and Shipley Bantams.

 

Paudie O’ Connor picked up the Player of the Year Award for the second year running, and also picked up the award for East Bierley Bantams Player of the Year, and Yan Songo picked up awards from both Bingley Bantams and Shipley Bantams.

 

The Academy Player of the Year was Bobby Pointon.

 

You can check out the key categories on the Clubs' Facebook and Twitter feeds, and also a more detailed list of winners on the Clubs' website.

 

Once again, thank you for all of you for taking part. You know who you are and we very much appreciate your involvement in this event and making it a success.

Thank you for your Participation in the Bucket Collection

11th May 2022

We would like to thank all of you who participated in the Bucket Collection on Saturday at Valley Parade, and of course all you volunteers who made it happen.

 

A fantastic total of £2,595.62 raised for @BradfoBurnsUnit on Saturday.


A physical memorial service, the first since 2019 following two years of online activity as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, will be held today at Centenary Square, in conjunction with Bradford Metropolitan Council, beginning at 11am.


Remembering the 54 Bradford City supporters and two Lincoln City supporters who went to watch a game of football but never returned home.

How we remember the events of 37 years ago

10th May 2022

An article written last year, aimed at perhaps a younger audience of football fans, who may not be aware of the terrible tragedy witnessed at Valley Parade 37 years ago now, is a valuable educational resource.

 

Written by Simon Lloyd of the online magazine www.joe.co.uk, he interviews Mohammed Ibrahim, who recalls his experience of the events of May 11th, 1985. Simon Lloyd also interviews the Chair of Bantams Supporters Trust, Manny Dominguez how he remembers it too.

 

The article features a short documentary called ‘Unheard Voices’, which is a series of interviews with Humayun Islam from Bangla Bantams, and others, predominantly from the Bangladeshi community who live in the locality around Valley Parade and how they remember too.

 

You can see the article here.

Burns Research Unit bucket collection volunteers appeal

3rd May 2022

The Trust, as part of a broader Supporters Board initiative is appealing for members / supporters to volunteer to help with the annual bucket collection at the last home game of the season against Carlisle United on Saturday 7th May.

 

This season will be the first time we will all be together to have the bucket collection post lock down, helping to raise vital funds for Bradford’s Plastic Surgery and Burns Research Unit (PSBRU).

 

As a volunteer bucket collector, you will need to arrive at the WD Gate entrance - the large gates opposite the club shop for around 1.30 and collect a bucket and stand outside the various entrance points around the ground.

 

If you would like to be involved in the bucket collection please contact us at hello@bantamstrust.org.uk.

 

We hope we can get a successful turn out of supporters that are willing to get in the community spirit of raising money for something we all care deeply about.

Vote for your Young Player of the Year

14th April 2022

It is that time of year again, as Bantams Supporters’ Trust Members have the opportunity to vote for the 2021-22 Bradford City Young Player of the Year.

 

It has been another difficult period watching the Bantams. Although this time post lock down, watching from the stands, it has been under an unpopular manager for the most part of this season.

 

Now under Mark Hughes and his coaching staff, we are seeing the team enjoy a bit more freedom to try some new things and have some more oomph.

 

Out of three coming through the ranks of the Academy, Reece Staunton, Kian Scales and Fin Cousin-Dawson, it is Fin Cousin Dawson who has earned more first team appearances this season showing some dynamism in defence.

 

Midfielder, Matty Daly, on loan until the end of the season, signed in January from West Yorkshire rivals Huddersfield has definitely shown an attacking flair, netting 3 goals with his first being against Walsall away on January 25th.

 

Elliot Watt, signed up from Wolves in 2020, is enjoying his second season with the Bantams in midfield. An ever-present, reliable player, Watt is a strong contender.

 

The first of seven recruits signed in January, Watford born, midfield player Dion Pereira, on loan from Luton, has had injury problems causing a late start for the Bantams, but has made 6 appearances and has shown some promise getting on the score sheet against Bristol Rovers away.

 

All six candidates eligible for the Bradford City Young Player of the Year 2021-22 have made valuable contributions, but who has been your stand out performer?

 

  • Reece Staunton 
  • Kian Scales
  • Fin Cousin-Dawson 
  • Matty Daly
  • Elliot Watt 
  • Dion Pereira

 

Voting starts today, Thursday 14th April and will end on Tuesday 26th April. The Player Of The Year event will be on Sunday, 8th May 2022.

 

To vote, simply email us your number 1 Young player at hello@bantamstrust.co.uk.

Bradford City's Financial Report

12th April 2022

Bradford City’s financial report by Alan Biggin, published on the club’s website on the 4th April is very refreshing. The Trust knew in advance that there would be more detail ahead of its’ publication, see our last meeting with Ryan Sparks for reference, but we are more than pleased as to the reason behind it’s fuller explanation.

 

It is the Clubs greater commitment to transparency and it’s open understanding of the idea that a football club, or more specifically this Club, “is more than the sum of its shareholders, directors, and officers. It is an important community asset - always reflecting those exquisite highs and despondent lows of that shared experience.”

 

The fact that the custodians that run the Club believe our football club is a community asset is more inclined to the Trusts’ way of thinking and is a great step forward.

 

Furthermore, the report is very frank in its’ explanations of the losses, predominantly due to Covid, and the Government money they got to ameliorate those Covid related loses. It would be interesting to see the exact amount figures from the EFL / EPL.

 

Players Wages

It won’t be a surprise to anyone that players’ wagers are a significant cost for the club. And it is important that they have been held at £2.7, a reduction of £3k on the previous year. The report also refers to spending on players’ wages being constrained to ‘Salary Cost Management Protocol (SCMP)’ framework, which limits spending on player wages to a percentage of club Turnover. In League 1, clubs can spend a maximum of 60% of their turnover on wages. In League 2, that limit is 55%. There are no restrictions (in themselves) on the amount a club can lose or spend on transfer fees. See more on SCMP here.


Definition of turnover

As the Report explains, the term used for EFL purposes, is broader than it is under SCMP. Crucially, for the EFL, turnover includes donations from the owners to the club and injections of equity. For further examples and info see here.

 

Deficit budget planning

By this the club must mean it starts from a minimalist financial position to allow all aspects of the Club’s financial activity to out perform its’ starting figures.

 

Next seasons on the field campaign potential success is key to improving all areas of the clubs’ infrastructure.



Season Tickets

We welcome the club’s continued commitment to keeping season tickets low, and freezing them for another season despite the financial squeeze on incomes. This demonstrates the clubs’ awareness that we have a low wage economy in Bradford. The affordable season tickets have worked for many seasons in driving up attendances, and they are most probably the envy of many other clubs and supporters.

 

Financial Transparency and our Structured Dialogue with the Club

The Trust believes that financial transparency is a key component in developing a strong structure dialogue relationship. In our last meeting with Ryan Sparks it was agreed that the provision of finances would be a regular item on the agenda and therefore we should be in a position to provide extra inform and educate members / supporters on factors and decisions where the official Club publicity channels may not.

FSA meet with Forest Green's CEO - A Good News Story

6th April 2022

After several supporters of various League Clubs raised concerns about their visits to Forest Green Rovers this season, in particularly the distance from the ground supporters have to walk from the car park to the ground, Senior FSA Colleagues, Amanda Jacks, Jane Hughes, Ashley Brown, recently held a zoom call with the CEO, Henry Staelens, and their newly appointed Fan Experience Officer, Thomas Jones. 

 

It was a very positive meeting and Forest Green Rovers are keen to improve the away fan experience. They have recently opened an away Fan Zone, which they are looking to develop further in the future.

 

With regards to the parking situation, even home fans can’t park on site as it’s reserved for officials, staff, players & hospitality, and the Club intend to move to a new ground, 7 miles out of the area which is said to be ready by the 2025/26 season. In a survey carried out by Forest Green Rovers Supporters Club, over 90% said they were in favour. Many feel the ground is cramped for space & struggles to get enough water & even power on a match day. Moreover, Club and supporters are aware of lack of facilities for away fans & the congestion on match days is very inconvenient for home owners in the residential area around the current stadium.

 

Disabled Supporters

For future reference, if any fans require a wheelchair space, it is worth noting that this is currently accommodated in the home end and individual away fans must contact FGR prior to their visit to book a place, even if the ticket is purchased through the visiting club. Enquiries can be made at reception@fgr.co.uk.

 

How was your experience this season?

Email us at hello@bantamstrust.co.uk

Clubs in Crisis

2nd April 2022

This is the first in a series of articles about football clubs getting into financial trouble. The first one focuses on one of the 12 founder member clubs that formed the Football League in 1888.

 

Derby County

The Rams have been in administration since September 2021 as a result of former Chairman and local businessman, Mel Morris, who gambled and lost an attempt to return Derby County back to the big time in 2019.

 

The Club is currently in ‘crucial and confidential talks’ with their advisors and their prospective purchasers, according to their administrator, Quantuma, and they say that Funding is available to see the Club complete the season. See more of Quantuma’s statement here.

 

These talks are continuing in order to ensure a suitable bid can be accepted that satisfies the necessary criteria to fulfill the EFL’s requirements and insolvency law.

 

Derby County also had the added complication of Middlesborough and Wycombe Wanderers threatening legal action, and they have been considering their claims should be protected under the terms of the Insolvency Policy.

 

Prior to the confirmation of funding (See Quantuma’s statement) to see them through to the end of the season, the EFL on the 27th January had given a 4 week extended deadline for the provision of funding plans.

 

Furthermore the EFL state that the maximum period for any Club to remain in administration is 18 months and no Club is allowed to start more than one season in administration.

 

The EFL deducted 12 points as consequence of the Club itself appointing Administrators. A further 9 points were agreed with the Club, by way of an Agreed Decision after the Club admitted to breaches of the EFL’s rules. See more of EFL’s Statement here.


 The Fan-Led Review of Football Governance, commissioned by the Government, and undertaken by Tracey Crouch MP contains proposals directly addressing how to prevent clubs ending up in such difficult financial situations. And the primary recommendation of the review is that football requires a strong, independent regulator to secure the future of our national game.

 

The Government welcomed the report at Prime Minister’s Questions, 24th March reiterating their intention to put an independent regulator in place – all eyes are now on the forthcoming Queen’s Speech to see how urgently that commitment will be kept. See more here.

 

How can fans help? Do your bit… Fans can fix football

Supporters should contact their MP and ask their MP to show their backing for the Fan-led Review by writing to Nadine Dorries, the secretary of state for DCMS. MPs should ask the minister for a firm commitment that legislation supporting the full implementation of the Fan-led Review will definitely be in the Queen’s Speech. Everyone can make a difference by showing their support for the review.

 

For a step-by-step guide to contacting your MP, see more here.

Trust Stall this Saturday

24th March 2022

This stall will be the last one before our Easter home fixture on Good Friday.

 

We raised a modest amount of £15.30 from scarf and badge sales last week before the Port Vale game.

 

We do have a very small amount of our original enamel badges (£3.50) left, and some button badges (£2) that have also sold well. We will be getting some new enamel badges with our current logo design as well as more button badges shortly.

 

City fans can sign up to be members on our sign up sheet and if you have a QR scanner app on your phone, you’ll be able to be scan our QR code and find our link to our join form to fill out.

 

We also have 2 copies left of the ‘Stand Up Sit Down – A Choice to watch Football’, by Peter Caton, priced £10, and we also have some scarves (pictured) at £10, that have contributed most to our fundraising on these stalls.

 

If you would like to help out on a future stall please email us at hello@bantamstrust.co.uk.

Bantams Supporters Trust supporting Ukranian Refugees

23rd March 2022

Our commercial partners Chablais Sport / WorldRetro that sell our retro shirts and other Trust wear are based in Poland and Ukraine and have been involved in excellent work in helping Ukrainian people escape their war torn home.

 

They have been working closely with Southend United Supporters Trust to produce a Ukraine Refugee Travel scarf that includes the Trust logo as well as the Ukrainian national emblem. Every scarf sold means one refugee reaching relatives in the UK without any payment by them.

 

Bantams Supporters Trust has also joined in showing our support of this humanitarian effort.

 

How it works

World Retro have worked astonishingly hard to focus on making the transportation process for those eligible to come to the UK work by devising a plan to move them from the Ukrainian border to a Polish airport, working with airline Wizz Air to provide seats to fly them to the UK, and then for the new arrivals to be greeted and taken to their new homes over here. All of this work is done by volunteers and funded for by them aside from the relatively modest cost of the flight.

 

Fans can buy a scarf for £20 from our Retro Shirts link and for EVERY scarf purchased YOU are helping to bring ONE person to a place of safety away from the horrors of the war that is ravaging through their country.


We cannot do everything, but we can do something. So please, if you can, purchase a scarf and show your support.

Fan Reps meet EFL Executives

22nd March 2022

Fan representatives from the EFL’s three divisions met online with the competition’s senior officials at the end of February to discuss ongoing issues across the leagues.

 

It was part of a series of Structured Dialogue meetings, as part of the EFL’s commitment to Fan Engagement and meet bi-annually with supporters groups from the FSA’s network.

 

The supporter groups representing clubs in the Championship, League One, and League Two were drawn from the FSA’s network of democratically affiliated and associated fan groups, fanzines and activists.

 

The meeting discussed fixture postponements, the Fan-Led Review, Fan Behavior / Stadium Safety, the EFL’s Supporter Survey 2022, and in the Any Other Business, the FSA asked the EFL to clarify its position, or that of its clubs, on entering partnerships with entities using crypto-currencies.

 

The minutes can be found here.

 

Fill in the EFL’s Supporter Survey 2022 before it disappears here.

Trust stall this Saturday

16th March 2022

This will be the seventh occasion we will be having our stall on the concourse in the main stand, which has been a success in itself in having a presence and being able to regularly meet our members.

 

So we will be at our usual spot before kick off ahead of our home fixture against Port Vale.

 

We will be putting out our button badges (£2) and stickers out on Saturday alongside our leaflets that we will be giving out that summarise what we are about, what we do, and how to get involved.

 

City fans can sign up to be members on our sign up sheet and if you have a QR scanner app on your phone, you’ll be able to be scan our QR code and find our link to our join form to fill out.

 

We still have a small amount of pin badges that we have left from when we last produced them with our old square quartered BCST logo, priced at £3.50 each. We will be ordering some new ones soon. We also have 2 copies left of the ‘Stand Up Sit Down – A Choice to watch Football’, by Peter Caton, priced £10. We also have some scarves (pictured) at £10.

 

We raised £43.50 before the last home game versus Swindon Town!

 

If you would like to help out on a future stall please email us at hello@bantamstrust.co.uk.

Brentford announce plans for standing at new ground

15th March 2022

Brentford have confirmed plans to install barrier seats at the Brentford Community stadium for the start of the 2022-23 season.


The entirety of the new ground’s west stand and 1,700 seats in the away end will be converted to licensed standing areas next season, it was reported towards the end of February.


Brentford moved to their new all-seater ground back in September 2020 having been at Griffin Park since 1904, which was one of the few grounds with a traditional terrace still in place.

When the Bees were promoted to the Championship back in 2014, after a record-breaking promotion season in League One, they were then the only club with purpose-built standing areas in the division – their situation highlighted the illogical nature of outmoded all-seater legislation.


In January this year the Government announced the first cohort of early adopters to run licensed standing areas in Premier League and Championship.


In total five clubs – Cardiff City, Chelsea, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur – were the first in the top two tiers of football to have licensed safe standing in designated rail-seated and seated areas for home and away fans, as the Government works towards fulfilling its manifesto commitment.


Read more here.

 

Bantams Supporters Trust (BST) is an affiliated member of the Football Supporters Association (FSA) - a democratic national supporters organisation representing football fans in England and Wales.

 

BST and the FSA have been pioneers of Stand Up for Choice campaign.

 

Join us here. 

 

Other areas of FSA work include:

Casework – where fans have been treated unfairly during their matchday experience.

Club Liaison – advice on fan-engagement / supporter consultation / Help the development of new supporter groups / Provide insight into local supporter groups and intergroup dynamics.

European Super League – Campaign work with programme of key principles.

Fan-led Review – was a central part of the consultation with its own number of recommendations / campaign work / lobbying.

Fans for Diversity - joint project / campaign led by the FSA and Kick It Out, since 2014, celebrating diversity in football.

GambleAware  - an awareness campaign to educate supporters on safer betting.

Pledgeball - A campaign on the climate crisis to look at ways football can reduce its’ carbon footprint as a supporters and clubs.

Supporter ownership - is something that the FSA supports and promotes which is part of its’ mission statement.

Women’s football – promotes the women’s game by encouraging greater participation of women in playing football and attending matches as supporters at every level.

 

Be an individual member of the FSA here.

Report of the Trust's meeting with Ryan Sparks

9th March 2022

On Monday 7th March 22, The Trust met with Ryan Sparks, and was indeed very constructive, and informative. It was also a plan to move forward and build trust between the Supporters Trust and the football club.


Before going into detail of that we had a brief catch up with developments since the Trust’s last meeting in October 21 and since the Fans’ Forum, chiefly that Derek Adams has departed and Mark Hughes has come to take on the task of lifting the team and giving a sense of renewed optimism after quite a turbulent season so far.

 

Developments since we last met

Fanzones – there will be a trial area towards the rear of the kop to allow drinking this season. There will be more of a family orientated fanzone expected to be ready at the start of next season at the BEAP Community Partnership Sport Centre very near the Hollywell Ash Lane.

 

Finance – is stable. During Covid, the 20-21 season, the Club made a loss, and for this season, 21-22, the Club could break even despite ticket and revenue being down in the recent period. Ryan also said that the Club will publicise a more detailed breakdown of the accounts this year than last year.

 

iFollow Update – Manny Dominguez representing the trust, made the point that he hoped it was asked within the FSA’s structured dialogue with EFL last month whether concessions for watching iFollow for those who are still isolating due to other health difficulties, that include weakened immune systems for example, or suffering directly from Covid. This doesn’t look likely due to UAFA’s article 48 relating to the Saturday 3pm blackout Ryan believed.

 

Academy facilities – Ryan said that this aspect of the Club has seen huge improvement and is an important asset that they want to develop.

 

The stadium – No development here but Ryan has developed a strong relationship with Gordon Gibb, which hasn’t been done prior to Ryan being at City.

 

Season Tickets – will go on sale in mid April. He said more will be revealed in the near future. Ryan was sympathetic to the impact of the rise in the cost of living on supporters, and will be encouraging more to go on direct debit. Currently 3,300 pay in this way.

 

Branding – More than 4,000 supporters engaged in the survey that was carried out before Christmas and results and analysis will be revealed in due course. When it comes to branding on shirts, the current one appears to be unchanged the longest at least in the modern era – not since 1991, which the Trust believes is a good thing.

 

Government Fan-led Review - The Golden Share

Recommendation 28, Chapter 8, page 99

 

Manny, outlined very briefly what it is; that it is part of the wider Fan-Led Review Report written by Tracey Crouch MP to safeguard the future of football which calls for an independent regulator to asses all aspects of the game in consultation with key stakeholders of the game and in this aspect it is something that allows fans groups such as a Supporters Trust (which are Community Benefit Societies) a say in key decision that cover:

 

The sale of the stadium

Relocation of Club

Club joining a new competition

Club badge

First team home Club colours

Club name

 

Members of a Trust would be involved in a consultation process where fans would be able to vote.

 

You can see more of summary of the Golden Share here.

Key bullet point recommendations of the Fan-led Review can be found here.

The Fan-Led Review Report in its entirety can be found here.

 

He explained it was similar to the 50% plus 1 model of ownership, which exists in Germany. Whilst the Golden Share is not necessarily ownership, it does in theory allow fans a real say in certain aspects of the Club.

 

He further explained that the FSA and Tracey Crouch are keen to get the EFL and EPL to fully endorse as much of the Fan-Led Review as possible before it gets any legal status. And the question about it to the EFL in their Structured Dialogue meeting with the FSA was how will Clubs be made aware and encouraged to support such an initiative

 

Indeed the EFL showed it’s initial support back in November of last year after the final report came out. See here.

 

The key thing about the report is that it is made up of a series of recommended reforms about cleaning up the image of the game by making it more transparent and accountable, ensuring policies and procedures are put in place to prevent football clubs going bust.

 

Ryan’s response was that he would be interested to see how that will be passed on to Clubs because he hasn’t seen anything yet.

 

Structured Dialogue

Firstly, Manny had said that the working relationship with the Ryan and the Club, from the Trust’s point of view had come along way in developing trust.

 

We discussed the new Fan Index table. This shows where clubs stand according to the fan consultancy firm ‘Think Fan Engagement’ in terms of a clubs progress on:

 

Dialogue: engagement with fans and fans groups.

Governance: what underpins those relationships – supporters’ charter, formal agreements with supporters’ groups etc.

Transparency: what a club publishes in relation to its dialogue with fans / fans groups such as financial reports, minutes reports of meetings etc.

 

Points are awarded for each category and totted up, and in the figures just out for 2020- 21, the Club have leapt 15 places from 43rd the previous season to 28th. See here.

 

Ryan said that the points increase is mainly due to their new twitter help channel but also more recently creating another supporter service channel through the website.

 

In introducing his structured dialogue proposal to develop it further, Manny explained that the Trust would like to see the format develop where we work together in a way that helps us understand much more about the thinking behind our particular view points so that on occasions we can meet in the middle, and that the Trust can help to communicate decisions a club makes to fans, especially during more challenging times.

 

Our proposed key areas of developing our structured dialogue are in the main adding 3 main tenants to a running agenda apart from the momentary issues of the time. These are a commitment to discussing:

 

Financial Performance – headline income and expenditure, debt, sources of income

The provision of information - reports ahead of and during meetings etc.

Ownership – an opportunity to discuss the existing structure / owners’ commitment / future plans, and an opportunity to discuss the potential of the Trust’s stake in the Club.

 

Broadly speaking, Ryan was happy to accept these and we very much hope that with these added items for discussion we can trial how this works before we go about signing a Memorandum of Understanding.

 

See more about Structured Dialogue and a Memorandum of Understanding here.

Trust has a stall on Saturday versus Swindon Town

4th March 2022

Bantams Supporters Trust will be in it’s usual spot, on the concourse of the main stand between 1.30 and K.O. to raise our profile and encourage a more active involvement in the Trust.

 

City fans can sign up to be members on our sign up sheet and if you have a QR scanner app on your phone, you’ll be able to be scan our QR code and find our link to our join form to fill out.

 

We will be putting out our button badges (£2) and stickers out on Saturday. The leaflets and donations tin go without saying. Donations are always welcome. We still have plenty of leaflets to give out which includes info on how to get involved on the inside pages. The leaflet also has an advert for our retro shirts, including new prices and more choice from WorldRetro / Chablais Sport.

 

We still have a small amount of pin badges that we have left from when we last produced them with our old square quartered BCST logo, priced at £3.50 each. We also have 3 copies left of the ‘Stand Up Sit Down – A Choice to watch Football’, by Peter Caton, priced £10. We also have some scarves (pictured) at £10.

 

You will be very welcome to help on our stall! Thank you to those that came to the stall for a chat last week. We had two more join and raised £29. See you there!

 

If you would like to help out on a future stall please email us at hello@bantamstrust.co.uk.

Bantams Supporters Trust joint work with WorldRetro/Chablais Sport

2nd March 2022

As many of you know, just over a year ago we have been working together with WorldRetro /Chabais Sport to sell retro shirts whereby £8 from every shirt sold goes to the Trust and we are then able to give a financial contribution to Bradford Central Foodbank from these sales.

 

World Retro / Chablais Sport are football fans and also support other Supporters Trusts in this way. In fact they provide support to membership-based groups and clubs involved in other sports, including cycling, athletics, rowing, bowls, rugby, and even archery.

 

As of January this year, WorldRetro / Chablais Sport had to put it’s prices up because of additional border costs and VAT pressures, with production based in Europe, but they still sell them at reasonable competitive prices. So, an adult price shirt has gone up from £35 to £39.99, and Junior /babygrows are up from £31 to £35.99. This is with absorbing about half of the cost increases while continuing their £8 donation to the Trust.

 

It is difficult to get good modern-quality retro shirts these days without paying over the odds. WorldRetro / Chablais Sport were set up to offer any shirt for any club and any season at a competitive price. They make any design subject to copyright, from baby grow to 7XL.

 

The Trust has also worked with WorldRetro / Chablais Sport to increase our range, selling the Bantams Supporters Trust branded products. See online.

 

If you recommend the Trust branded clothing by WorldRetro / Chablais Sport for any club items, including full team kits, they will be supplied with specifically designed quality kit at a very competitive price. AND WorldRetro / Chabais Sport will donate to the Trust 10% of all ex-VAT sales. 

 

If there are any products that you would like in the Bantams Trust brand, let us know at hello@bantamstrust.co.uk or fans@chablais-sport.com.

The Appointment of Mark Hughes & Glyn Hodges

1st March 2022

It blew everyone away when the news was revealed on Thursday 24th February that Mark Hughes, was appointed as the new City Manager. There’ll be many fans of a certain age who will remember his playing career, especially at Manchester United.

 

The reception he got on Saturday at Valley Parade against Mansfield Town was a spectacle to see. The excitement of the occasion was almost tangible, as many season ticket holders who had drifted away during Derek Adams’ tenure, had returned for the occasion that Hughes as our Manager could inspire a fighting spirit from our current struggling crop.

 

Mark Hughes and all the City faithful were all in for a rude awakening and Hughes and his Assistant, Glyn Hodges who joined on the 25th, have the arduous task of lifting the team and getting the best out of what they have to work with.

 

Of course the Supporters Trust welcomes both Hughes and Hodges, but fans and Club have to be patient with progress, and any progress has to be better than what we have been accustomed to under Adams. Many fans want something to believe in again in order to commit to renewing season tickets.

 

Fans, naturally will be expecting better quality signings in the summer. Both Hughes and Hodges are football veterans and will have contacts across Europe.

 

We certainly hope that we are not in a similar position in another 6 months. Hopefully, the Club have got it right and that these managerial acquisitions are a sign of real commitment from the owner.

 

The Trust’s work

The Trust will continue plugging away at engaging with the Club through ‘Structured Dialogue’, seeking to representing our members, by working together with Club representatives and work towards communicate decisions in order to educate supporters and the wider community on factors that lead to a decision being made.

 

We are in reality at the beginning of such a process and building a working relationship will take time. As we build a trust, it is hoped that both Club and Trust get an understanding from the Trust’s viewpoint - our ethos about involving fans more in club initiatives, and from the Clubs perspective, how it operates as a business, and establish some common ground where shared ideas can be beneficial for the Club and Trust.

 

We are working towards a voluntary agreement known as a Memorandum of Understanding, otherwise known as an MoU.

 

See more about Structured Dialogue and a Memorandum of Understanding here.

 

Strength comes in numbers – Join the Trust Today

Become a member and get involved. It’s FREE! As fans we all share the same concerns, and want long-term success for our Club. We are only as effective as the numbers involved in it allow it to be. It is not possible to improve the Trust from being outside of it.

 

Join here. If you want to get involved email us at hello@bantamstrust.co.uk

The Trust has a Stall at the Mansfield game

24th February 2022

Bantams Supporters Trust will be in it’s usual spot, on the concourse of the main stand between 1.30 and K.O. to raise our profile and encourage a more active involvement in the Trust.

 

City fans can sign up to be members on our sign up sheet and if you have a QR scanner app on your phone, you’ll be able to be scan our QR code and find our link to our join form to fill out.

 

We will be putting out our button badges (£2) and stickers out on Saturday. The leaflets and donations tin go without saying. Donations are always welcome. We still have plenty of leaflets to give out which includes info on how to get involved on the inside pages. The leaflet also has an advert for our retro shirts, including new prices and more choice from WorldRetro / Chablais Sport.

 

We still have a small amount of pin badges that we have left from when we last produced them with our old square quartered BCST logo, priced at £3.50 each. We also have 3 copies left of the ‘Stand Up Sit Down – A Choice to watch Football’, by Peter Caton, priced £10. We also have some scarves (pictured) at £10.

 

You will be very welcome to help on our stall! Thank you to those that came to the stall for a chat a couple of weeks ago and we signed someone up, as well as raising £28.50. See you there!

 

If you would like to help out on a future stall please email us at hello@bantamstrust.co.uk.

The Departure of Derek Adams

18th February 2022

On the 15th February, the Club had parted ways with Derek Adams, giving cause for celebration amongst much of the City faithful. His brand of football was frustrating and difficult to watch, his choice of formations, chopping and changing of the team, his post match interviews and his ego did nothing to ingratiate himself with anyone. There will be a lift in the mood at Boundary Park amongst supporters there at Oldham, which will hopefully transcend to Mark Truman and the players on Saturday to give us what we’ll all be craving for, a win! And we’ll be still within a chance.

 

However, this whole situation is sad, sad because it is yet another failed manager story at this Club, after all the hyperbole about Adams getting us up. With his record of getting teams up, there were few that were doubters. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but now we are back on the managerial merry-go-round, and the hardest job will be finding someone who will fit, someone who will be right, in building a team and is able to get onside with Club and fans. How much time will we give him to do what we all want? A team that will win itself out of League Two, and see players prepared to run through brick walls, giving their all as a team. Of course we all know that is easier said than done, and at this stage there are a lot of unknowns.

 

The option of keeping Adams was full of risk too, risk of further alienating fans and risking losing that essential footfall at Valley Parade especially with season ticket sales and renewals just round the corner.

 

The Trust wants more than ever for Club to have stability and continuity, and for us to succeed. This cannot be solely built on short-term immediate success. We know there is accumulated disappointment and frustration amongst supporters, because that immediate success has still not come by us, and we see the number of ex managers grow as a result. Nothing is automatic, and success won’t just happen because we think we deserve it. We have to be prepared for it to take some time, and be patient for things to come together with whoever is appointed.

 

Ownership issues

With the accumulated frustration with a lack of progress on the field out of League Two, invariably comes the scrutiny and criticism about ownership and leadership of the Club. This cannot be ignored. It is a widely held view that Stefan Rupp is not passionate of the Club he owns due to a lack of investment and lacking his physical presence of addressing the fans. This came across at the Fans Forum earlier this year. Ryan Sparks has also faced criticism, some of it unnecessarily abusive. Please see the Supporters Board Statement here.

 

The Trust’s role

Bantams Supporters Trust has always set out to engage with the Club through ‘Structured Dialogue’ directly with the Club, and also through the Supporters Board, which had in October last year re-launched itself.

 

We believe that Ryan Sparks is committed to fan engagement, and whilst the Trust has had 2 meetings with him so far last year, we are due another one.

 

We do however want our engagement with the Club to be a part of a meaningful consultation of shared ideas and a commitment to share information. It has to be much more than just raising issues, and information announcements.

 

As a Trust, representing our members, we would like to be in a position to be working together with Club representatives and communicate decisions in order to educate supporters and the wider community on factors that lead to a decision being made, and building a working relationship will take time.

 

We are working towards a voluntary agreement known as a Memorandum of Understanding, otherwise known as an MoU.

 

There are 3 key areas we would like to build trust around working with the Club:

Finances – an opportunity to understand the detail behind the figures, and build on the understanding of why the club operates as it does.

 

Disclosure of information/Transparency – A commitment to share information and clarification to alleviate concerns and explain any items drawn to supporters’ attention.

 

Ownership – an opportunity to ask questions about the existing ownership structure, owner commitment, ownership plans and potential opportunities for supporters groups to have a stake in the club.

 

See more about Structured Dialogue and a Memorandum of Understanding here.

 

Strength comes in numbers – Join the Trust Today

Become a member and get involved. It’s FREE! As fans we all share the same concerns, and want long-term success for our Club. We are only as effective as the numbers involved in it allow it to be. It is not possible to improve the Trust from being outside of it.

 

Getting involved as a Trust Board member will:

  • Give you a say in how the Trust is run. Every member has a say – It is a democratic organization based on the principle of one member, one vote.
  • If you have ideas, which we know everyone has, you will have the opportunity to have your say at our regular board meetings.
  • If you have any skills, experience and confidence in working as part of a team, being an accountant, chairing meetings, raising money, putting on events, being articulate and writing articles, have experience of coordinating activities, representing others, advising, recruiting and campaigning and more, then we’d love you to get involved.
  • You will have opportunities for training and development, learning and understanding more about the wider football supporters movement, be part of a much larger network of fans of other clubs and why it is there to provide support for football fans, building support and awareness of the viability for clubs to be more fan orientated, whilst promoting principles of co-operation and fan-ownership.

 

Join here. If you want to get involved email us at hello@bantamstrust.co.uk

We'll be having a Presence at the Exeter Game

9th February 2022

Bantams Supporters Trust will be in it’s usual spot, doing its fourth awareness stall this season on the concourse of the main stand between 1.30 and K.O. to raise the profile of the Trust and encourage involvement.

 

City fans can sign up to be members on our sign up sheet and if you have a QR scanner app on your phone, you’ll be able to be scan our QR code and find our link to our join form to fill out.

 

We will be putting out our button badges (£2) and stickers out on Saturday. The leaflets and donations tin go without saying. Donations are always welcome. The new leaflets we have printed includes info on how to get involved on the inside pages. The leaflet also has a new advert for our retro shirts, including new prices and more choice form WorldRetro/Chablais Sport.

 

We still have a small amount of pin badges that we have left from when we last produced them with our old square quartered BCST logo, priced at £3.50 each. We also have 3 copies left of the ‘Stand Up Sit Down – A Choice to watch Football’, by Peter Caton, priced £10.

 

You will be very welcome to help on our stall! See you there!

Proceeds Received from FA Cup Reschedule with Exeter City

7th February 2022

Despite bowing out of the FA Cup in the first round, two good things did happen from that rescheduled replay that took place on the 30th of November last year: one was that City fans who went to the original replay had free entry to it, and the other was that Exeter Supporters Trust who own Exeter City agreed that their Club didn’t take their share of the profits, and instead give their share to charity.

 

After Consulting with us, it was agreed that both Trusts would share that profit through donating it to their preferred charities, and it turned out that both wanted it to go to our respective local foodbanks.

 

After contacting the Club about this news, whilst requesting permission to announce the news, and present a publicity cheque at a home game, the Club asked if we were available on the 15th of January. Adam Baker, from the Trust presented the cheque to Josie Barlow, the Bradford Central Foodbank Manager at half time when we were host to Salford. The total amount sent to Bradford Central foodbank was £7,393.

 

Josie, thanked everyone involved, saying, “Wow what a great day!!! Thank you so, so, much again for the very generous huge donation. It was so great being in the heart of City on the pitch!”

 

A photo of the presentation is on the Bradford Central Foodbank Facebook site, here. £3,000 of that money was also given to 3 other foodbanks in the city.

 

The picture has been featured in the Grecian’s programme Trust page ahead of their match versus the Monkey Hangers on the 29th January when they presented their cheque to Exeter Foodbank.

 

It is only because Bantams Supporters Trust is in such a unique position of being part of a wider movement of supporters’ trusts that we are able to work together in joint initiatives such as this.

 

We hope this presentation event and the opportunity we had to provide this amount of money to a local foodbank leads to more joint cooperation with Bradford City to do more to support Bradford Central foodbank in the near future.

Policies & Procedures after last years AGM

31st January 2022

We hope you have all enjoyed a good festive break even if results and performances on the pitch up to now have not given confidence to a good promotion push even if our position in the table suggests we are still within a shout of a play-off place.

 

Last year the Trust had its Annual General Meeting (AGM), and we thank members once again who made the effort to turn up in person and online on Zoom. The AGM is the focal point in the Trust calendar that allows us demonstrate what we have done in the year including providing our financial accounts, offer nominations for prospective Board Members (volunteer directors), and gives the Trust an opportunity to review its policies and procedures.

 

We have now approved the minutes of the AGM and provided the Financial Conduct Authority FCA our accounts, AGM minutes and updated policies for the year and they have now been registered and approved.

 

Our updated policies take into account the latest set of policies provided by Supporters Direct (SD) from 2016. Supporters Direct merged with the Football Supporters Federation (FSF) in 2019 to become one body, the Football Supporters Association (FSA).

 

Prior to this, Supporters Direct was the organisation that Supporters Trusts came out of and have been nurtured with guidance rules to make them transparent and fit for purpose, as well as providing volunteer directors training, guidance and support about improving relations with respective football clubs, and support for when things go wrong. SD were always about supporting the Trusts and supporting fans create new ones and FSF were always about the campaigns initiated by fans. Now they have merged the FSA can help us with all things Trust and campaigns.

 

What we have updated and added

The SD Model Rules for 2016 – (Updated from the 2014 version) these contain our general rules that cover what we are about, what constitutes being a member, any shares, rights of members, the functions of volunteer directors, how our meetings are conducted, how the Board is constituted, elections, general meetings and the Annual General Meeting, disciplinary procedures, disputes, financial arrangement and much more.

 

We also have updated 6 existing side policies, which are more in depth in their specific aspects, than what is contained in the general SD Model Rules.

These are:

Election Policy

Standing Orders For Society Board Meetings

Standing Orders For General Meetings

Board Membership And Conduct Policy

Disciplinary Policy

Privacy Policy

 

New Side Policies that we have added from the FSA are:

Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Policy

Social Media Use Policy

 

Where we publish these documents

These documents are published on our website in the Board and Constitution section here.


We also agreed at our AGM to send every member, through our database system, a Trust Members’ Handbook, which covers what we are about, our structure, members’ requirements, meetings and motions, elections and more. All the things that feature in our model rules but in bite size. This is also now up on our website in the Board and Constitution section.

 

Further reference points for guidance on Trust policies and more can be found here.

 

It is within our rules to give members the opportunity to give a minimum of 2 weeks to voice any objections to any of the policy updates and any policy additions. You can do this by emailing us at hello@bantamstrust.co.uk and you have until 16th February 2022 to do this.

The Fans' Forum and a cause for Optimism?

25th January 2022

First of all we would like to wish you all a belated Happy New Year, and keeping with a positive feel despite many of us who went to Spotland at the weekend, feeling frustrated after watching a performance devoid of any real conviction and confidence to have a real go, we welcome four new loan signings we have until the end of the season; Jamie Walker, from Hearts, who has had 2 recent appearances for us, Matty Daly, from Huddersfield, who has had one appearance, Dion Pereira, from Luton, who is yet to make an appearance and most recently, Alex Bass, a new goalie from Portsmouth. We wish them well in the team.

 

200 supporters turned up to the Fans’ Forum on the 11th January, hot on the heels of the desperately disappointing team performance in Cumbria, had the anticipation of being a real grilling of Ryan Sparks and Derek Adams.

 

Ryan Sparks opened up his contribution by saying that City is the closest to having a ‘fan owned’ club in our division, which was very perplexing to say the least as we are clearly not run on that model, but it was refreshing at least to have a fans’ forum that did not have any pre-planned questions and was steered by the variety of questions from the floor.

 

They were all questions you might expect, such as, why have we have not had a winning team for so long, why can’t players play for the shirt anymore, where is the investment in the team and structure of building a winning team, where is Stefan Rupp, is there any take over looming, what about the stadium lease to Gordon Gibbs’ Pension Fund.

 

From the questions about the team; players and the need for quality, fans’ expectations etc., Adams started off being quite defensive by saying he is the Manager, and he knows best. One of his responses was, that times change, society changes, and sometimes not for the better and that we are always now wishing our lives away when it comes to work, and that we can no longer expect players that want to run through brick walls anymore. But that is debatable. It has certainly been the case for the industrial masses though, even with shift in the changing landscape from manufacturing to the service sector but football is not the same. If your fortunate to get a playing career in the professional sport, it is a chosen career about dedication and ability that pays relatively well even in our league today, and whilst there isn’t a great deal of difference sometimes in this league, what stands those clubs out who are in the chasing pack and certainly at the top of the league is precisely a team effort, and confidence in the player ability of the team, and that is certainly more than what we have at the moment. The notion of team and collective effort must be drilled into our players as we sometimes look like a collection of individuals who still don’t know each other. Adams batted off much the criticism by reaffirming his intention was get the Club promoted. Ryan also said that it was his job to ensure there is as much money for the manager and that he felt the frustration we all feel as supporters.

 

For Ryan Sparks, he was asked about the WAGMI offer and if there was any talks with them on-going, and he made a point of separating himself from ownership, underlining his role as a CEO saying he was running the Club on a sound business footing, and that he is in regular dialogue with Stefan, often daily, and refused to be pinned down to comment on the WAGMI offer.

 

There was a doubt that Stefan Rupp may not be entirely committed to the Club and there questions about him taking any money from the Club as he did loan the Club £1.76m during the lock down period of 2020, and a desire for him to see supporters at events like this. Ryan denied that Stefan was taking money out of the Club and reiterated the Stefan was committed and the fact that the Club was in a financially sustainable footing and that we may well see Stefan in the future.

 

Asked about the ground and the lease, Ryan’s response was that they are building a relationship with Gordon Gibb, where previously this had not been built, and there were talks currently about future arrangements as the lease renewal deadline comes around in 2028 and it appeared by implication that a possible deal is being discussed.

 

There were questions about transparency, the publication of the accounts, the branding and season tickets, and it has to be said there has been an improvement in the way the Club engages with fans, predominantly through a series of online surveys, but also engaging with the Supporters Board and ourselves.

 

Ryan talked publishing the figures and said the supporter base drives the finances and that this is your club. He also said that the results of the branding survey will be revealed very soon. And with regards to season tickets he said getting the season tickets early shows signs that the club wants the income as soon as possible and that is not a good sign, but there are plans to improve the season ticket offer and facilities at the ground.

 

The Trust meeting with Ryan Sparks

The Trust are to meet with Ryan on February 7th. It was originally scheduled for early December, and we are keen to hear more with regards to the ground and any potential new facilities as well as the outcome of the branding exercise.

 

Whilst we have only had two meetings with him last year, and broadly speaking they have largely been positive, we need to establish a form consultation, which is not simply about information that we all receive, where the decisions will not be changed by what is discussed. We want to get to a level of understanding whereby the Club and the Trust can work together to decide the areas that are most important, and make a commitment to follow a process in order to build trust. A ‘Structured Dialogue’ if you will. We believe there is a commitment to follow a process from the Club.

 

For example, it is far better for clubs and supporters, represented by a Trust to work together and communicate decisions in order to educate supporters and the wider community on factors that lead to a decision being made – not knowing or understanding something leads to negative feedback on social media.

 

We are working towards a voluntary agreement called a Memorandum of Understanding, MoU.

 

In 2012, a government enquiry into Football Governance sought that, ‘Clubs will be required under league regulations to set out in a structured format the ways in which they will consult and engage with different supporters interests and groups’. The government’s Expert Working Group made up of football authorities and supporters groups put forward a series of recommendations in 2014, adopted by the FA PL, EPL and National League. We were part of the consultation process that resulted in these findings.

 

There are 3 key areas to establish trust around working with the clubs:

Finances – an opportunity to understand the detail behind the figures, and build on the understanding of why the club operates as it does.

Disclosure of information/Transparency – A commitment to share information and clarification to alleviate concerns and explain any items drawn to supporters’ attention.

Ownership – an opportunity to ask questions about the existing ownership structure, owner commitment, ownership plans and potential opportunities for supporters groups to take a stake in the club. See more about Structured Dialogue and a Memorandum of Understanding here.

 

Of course there are other things to consult on such as the ‘protected characteristics’ of a Golden Share such as club heritage, which covers club colours, and the badge, as well as the ground and other related issues. These are part of last years’ ‘Fan-led Review’ - a series of reforms of football to make the game more accountable to supporters by seeking legal redress. See more about the Fan-Led Review here.

 

Strength comes in numbers – Join the Trust Today

Become a member and get involved. It’s FREE! As fans we all share the same concerns, and want long-term success for our Club. We are only as effective as the numbers involved in it allow it to be. It is not possible to improve the Trust from being outside of it.

Getting involved as a Trust Board member will:

  • Give you a say in how the Trust is run. Every member has a say – It is a democratic organization based on the principle of one member, one vote.
  • If you have ideas, which we know everyone has, you will have the opportunity to have your say at our regular board meetings.
  • If you have any skills, experience and confidence in working as part of a team, being an accountant, chairing meetings, raising money, putting on events, being articulate and writing articles, have experience of co-ordinating activities, representing others, advising, recruiting and campaigning and more, then we’d love you to get involved.
  • You will have opportunities for training and development, learning and understanding more about the wider football supporters movement, be part of a much larger network of fans of other clubs and why it is there to provide support for football fans, building support and awareness of the viability for clubs to be more fan orientated, whilst promoting principles of co-operation and fan-ownership.

 

Join here. Email us at hello@bantamstrust.co.uk


 


Trust Statement on the possible US Crypto Currency group WAGMI United buy out of Bradford City

23rd December 2021

Bantams Supporters Trust was deeply concerned at reports that an offer has been made by a US cryptocurrency outfit to buy Bradford City football club.

 

It had been a bit of a whirlwind of activity by the end of last week from the moment this went public in the Washington Post, 16th December, then statements coming from the Clubs saying Stefan Rupp had seen an email offer from them and that it has now been rejected, to WAGMI United’s further response which appeared to imply there had been more going on behind the scenes than appeared at first sight.

 

On the ‘Twitter space’ on 16th December, the WAGMI group demonstrated a lack of awareness of the Clubs meaning, history and even its assets. A different model is nothing without those things.

 

We understand the crypto currency and NFT market can be volatile and unpredictable.

 

We had some concerns about the motives of WAGMI Utd, but would need to look at any detailed serious proposals. Having said that, the Trust is wary of any speculative investment that can potentially involve a high risk of loss.

 

The Trust is finding out more about the offer through the Club,

 

The Government’s Fan-Led review was set up to curb this kind of external intervention into the affairs of football clubs, and the *Golden Share provisions may offer an opportunity for fans to control an untoward development.

 

The Trust invites comment from all Bantam’s fans, and requests that the Bradford City owner Stefan Rupp consults directly with the Trust before any decisions on any sale are taken. You can email your comments to hello@bantamstrust.co.uk.

 

*A Golden Share is something which is included within a football clubs’ articles of association, and the Fan-Led Government Review recommends that all licensed clubs would allow a Cooperative Benefit Society, such as a Supporters’ Trust to be the holder of this ‘golden share’ which will give legal protection to club heritage, whereby clubs would need the democratic consent of the Trust to carry anything through where heritage is concerned. This means, clubs would allow Trusts to veto any attempt to change the club’s name, badge, Club home colours, sell the Club or stadium or join a breakaway Super League.

 

View / download the Government Fan-led Review final Report here.

FA Cup replay brings huge boost to Exeter and Bradford foodbanks

20th December 2021

Foodbanks in Exeter and Bradford will share a donation of almost £15,000 this Christmas, following last month’s FA Cup replay at St James Park.


Under the rules of the competition, the club is required to share the profit (after costs) of the match with Bradford City. Exeter City Supporters’ Trust, alongside Exeter City Football Club, took the decision to donate Exeter’s share of the profits – which equate to £14,786 - from the re-scheduled replay match on November 30 to foodbanks in the two cities.

 

Each foodbank will receive £7,393 – a sum which will help hundreds of vulnerable people and families.

 

Nick Hawker, chair of Exeter City Supporters’ Trust, said: “We are absolutely delighted to be able to donate this sum of money to both foodbank charities. As a supporter-owned club we felt it was important to share the profits from the replayed game to organisations in both cities. This continues to be a challenging time for us all, so we hope this donation will help to support many families in need.”

 

Mark Richardson, manager of Exeter Foodbank, said they were delighted to receive the donation. He added: “This is an amazingly generous gesture from Exeter City Football Club to Exeter Foodbank. This donation will enable us to keep one of our main venues running for a whole year! We are seeing increased numbers every month at the moment and the support of the club and the city are a lifeline for so many people. Thank you! And, as huge City fans.... COME ON YOU GRECIANS!”

 

Manny Dominguez, chair of Bantams Supporters' Trust, said: "We would like to thank Exeter Supporters’ Trust for this marvelous initiative. Supporters' Trusts are in a unique position that we can work together to support and improve our communities and indeed supporters' interests. Christmas can be a stressful time for families living on the breadline, made more difficult with the rise in energy bills this winter and Covid. We know the money will go directly to the people that need it through the foodbank."

 

Josie Barlow, manager of Bradford Central Foodbank said: “We’re so blown away by the generosity of Exeter City Football Club to forgo their profits from the match against Bradford and to donate half of the profits to us! This is amazing and such a great big generous donation which will help us feed 12,000 people next year! We are so grateful and thank you on behalf of the families who have nowhere else to turn to feed their families.”

Statement on Covid Rules

18th December 2021

On Wednesday 8th December the Government announced its intention to move to “Plan B” in response to the Omicron variant. This means fans will need a “vaccine passport” or negative test in order to access large sporting events. 

 

We understand that that Covid protocols are a continued source of frustration for many fans, but we do encourage supporters to familiarize themselves with them on the Club website ahead of any match that takes place.

 

We want fans to be safe in these renewed times of uncertainty.

Government Recently Announced First Round of Safe Standing Areas at 5 Clubs

16th December 2021

On the 8th November, Cardiff City, Chelsea, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur became the first clubs to be provided with a license for  ‘safe standing’ in seated areas from January 1st.

 

These five clubs will be the first in the top two tiers of football in England and Wales to allow standing in nearly 30 years – the FSA has always argued that standing could be introduced – an argument backed by the overwhelming majority of supporters.

 

Campaigners have long argued there is a tradition of fans standing at games as it increases choice, improves atmospheres and ensures supporter safety when hosted in properly managed and licensed standing areas.

 

The five grounds have been selected following an application process, open to all grounds covered by the all-seater policy, led by the Sports Grounds Safety Authority (SGSA).

 

Over the last 18 months the SGSA has been gathering evidence on standing areas and has concluded that standing is no less safe than seating where managed properly. If the initial trials prove successful, the expectation is legislation would be widened out to cover all stadiums in England’s top two divisions within the next few years.

 

The clubs applying for new standing areas had to meet strict criteria set out by the SGSA, including:


  • The necessary infrastructure being in place before 1 January 2022 – such as seats with barriers/independent barriers – which must be in both home and away sections.
  • The seats cannot be locked in the ‘up’ or ‘down’ position, allowing fans the option of being able to sit (for example, during breaks in play).
  • There must also be one seat/space per person.
  • The licensed standing areas must not impact the viewing standards or other fans, including disabled fans.
  • There must be a Code of Conduct in place for fans in the licensed standing area.
  • Briefing and training must be in place for staff and stewards to ensure only relevant ticketholders are admitted to the licensed standing areas.
  • CCTV must be in place and offer full coverage of the licensed standing areas.
  • The ground must consult with its Safety Advisory Group about plans for the licensed standing areas.

 

Over the remainder of the season, research will be carried out at the grounds by CFE Research, an independent research company, to evaluate the implementation of licensed standing areas at early adopter grounds. This research will be provided to Government to inform its decisions about the potential wider roll-out of licensed standing from the start of next season.

 

Jon Darch, who runs the Safe Standing Roadshow, and long time campaigner believes that the evaluation from the research will conclude that in areas being operated as standing it is not a good idea for there to be seats present that fans can stand on. CFE Research, did, after all, already conclude in their earlier work for the SGSA that "flip-up plastic seats are inherently unstable to stand on and so present a risk of falls".

 

Seats more akin to those in use at Celtic and all over Europe do not present such a risk, as they can be locked completely out of the way, thus preventing fans from standing on them or using them as steps to climb up onto the rails.

 

You can see the latest research conducted by CFE Research on The Safe Management of Persistent Standing in Seated Areas at Football Stadia as a Final report for the SGSA here which came out in June this year.

 

Bantams Supporters Trust welcomes these developments and can assure members that Safe Standing is one of our priority campaigns and it will be discussed with the Club. We advise that, the more fans join us, the greater influence we can have. You can join here.

Reminder for our Meeting to Ratify our AGM

15th December 2021

If you were thinking of attending AGM last month and couldn’t, then here’s your second chance! 

 

Unfortunately, the numbers present at last month’s AGM were not quorate, so our rules say that we give members another opportunity to attend.

 

It’s great when we get the opportunity to see you. Why not pop down and meet us? The meeting should take no more than an hour and we will be going for a Christmas drink afterwards.

 

The date for this meeting is this Thursday, 16th December from 7pm at the Midland Hotel.

 

You can also attend in the comfort and safety of your home on Zoom. The Join Zoom Meeting details are:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84714581702?pwd=STYwV0t6WFZwa2kra1F0cjZIalJyZz09

 

Meeting ID: 847 1458 1702

Passcode: 383953

FSA's Women at the match Survey Findings and the Report

14th December 2021

Remember that survey we put out in late August about women’s fan attitudes on attending? It was combined with a Police survey and findings from disabled supporters accessing the game featured on our previous website.

 

The survey built on the report of the first FSA ‘Women at the Match‘ survey back in 2014, one of the largest ever pieces of research into women fans’ experiences of attending professional football.

 

The results came out in early November and a key finding in the survey, which was completed by more than 2,000 match-goers, is that women are now less willing to accept sexist behaviour at games. And that is a positive thing. You can find out more here.

 

The report of our Women at the Match survey was released towards the end of November, giving fans more details on the work that was carried out earlier this year when FSA polled women supporters from both the men’s and women’s game.

 

While women’s attitudes towards and experiences of sexism garnered plenty of column inches when the results were reported, the survey looked at a whole range of issues, including how and when women supporters got into following football, the factors that influence their attendance and lots more besides. Find out more here. 

 

The full report can be found and downloaded here.

We’ll be on the Main Stand Concourse ahead of our 3pm K.O. against Sutton United

9th December 2021
Bantams Supporters Trust will be doing its third awareness stall this season on the concourse of the main stand between 1.30 and K.O. to raise the profile of the Trust and encourage involvement.

City fans can sign up to be members on our sign up sheet and if you have a QR scanner app on your phone, you’ll be able to be scan our QR code and find our link to our join form to fill out.

We would like to say thank you to those members how came up to us to say hello before the Forest Green fixture. You know who you are.

We will be putting out our button badges (£2) and stickers out on Saturday. The leaflets and donations tin go without saying. Donations are always welcome. The new leaflets we have printed includes info on how to get involved on the inside pages

We raised over £34 pounds. We may have the scarves again we’ve been selling (pictured), for £10. We do have in the pipeline our own Trust scarves, more details on those and other new items soon.

We still have a small amount of pin badges that we have left from when we last produced them with our old square quartered BCST logo, priced at £3.50 each. We also have 3 copies left of the ‘Stand Up Sit Down – A Choice to watch Football’, by Peter Caton, priced £10.

You will be very welcome to help on our stall! See you there!

Save The Date For Our Meeting
To Ratify Our AGM

3rd December 2021
First of all, a big Thank you to those who attended our recent AGM 0n the 24th November. It was great see some members we haven’t seen in a while and some very new faces on Zoom and in the room at the Midland Hotel. 
 
Unfortunately, the numbers present did not make the meeting quorate. To ensure that we are quorate within our rules means we have to have a minimum of 20 in attendance to be able to carry out and agree the business of the meeting.
 
To remedy this, our rules allow us to provide you with another opportunity to attend our AGM meeting with a minimum 7 days notice so that we can ratify our AGM business.
 
The date for this meeting is Thursday 16th December from 7pm at the Midland Hotel.

So, if you have been perhaps thinking of attending on zoom or maybe physically then here’s your second chance! It’s great when we get the opportunity to see you. Why not pop down and meet the Board and join us afterwards for a Christmas drink or two?

The Join Zoom Meeting details are:

Meeting ID: 847 1458 1702
Passcode: 383953

The Fan-led Review into Football Governance final report is here

30th November 2021
The Fan-led Review into Football Governance final report went live at 10pm on the 24th November, last week.

As Bradford City fans we have been impacted on more than one occasion by issues around club ownership, financial management and suffered more than one period in administration.

A sustainable future for our sport is vital, and many of the recommendations from this report if adopted would help with that.

Bantams Supporters Trust welcomes the findings. Here are some of the highlights:
  • For government regulatory reforms to make supporters engagement mandatory such engagement through a ‘shadow board’
  • For an independent regulator to administer and operate a licensing system that regulates the professional game
  • Greater wealth share distribution from the Premier League is recommended, across the pyramid, reducing the gulf between leagues, and the necessity of abandoning parachute payments
  • Ensuring new measures to protect football grounds and other club assets, including a right for supporters to buy grounds under threat
Through our communications with the Club, both directly with Ryan Sparks and through the Supporters Board we will be engaging with the Club on the many parts of this review. It is a work in progress.

The findings, if adopted would be a great step forward. To see more of the recommendations and to access the full report click here.

Foodbank charities in Exeter and Bradford to benefit from FA Cup replay

26th November 2021
As a gesture of good will, Exeter City Supporters Trust decided to offer returning Bradford City fans free tickets and that Exeter City’s share of the profits from the FA Cup replay against Bradford on Tuesday November 30 will be donated to foodbanks in the two cities.

Under the rules of the competition, the club is required to share the profit (after costs) of the match with Bradford. 

Exeter City has chosen to donate its share of the profits to charity – and following discussions between the two teams’ supporters’ trusts, it was agreed that this sum will be split between Exeter Foodbank and Bradford Central Foodbank.

Nick Hawker, chair of Exeter City Supporters’ Trust, said: “The club took the decision to donate our share of the profits to charity. We’re pleased to be able to donate it to Exeter Foodbank, which provides support to vulnerable families and individuals across the city. We know the pandemic has made life even more challenging for many people in Exeter, and we’re pleased to help in this way.”

Manny Dominguez, chair of Bantams Supporters Trust, said, “We are delighted to be able to take part in this unique offer of being able to donate from the proceeds of a match to Bradford Central Foodbank as a result of this rescheduled FA Cup replay on the 30th November.”

Following the government’s recently published Fan-Led Review, we see again that football supporters, especially those who will make the long journey down to Exeter from Bradford, appear to have been completely forgotten in this. We believe, a further gesture of goodwill from the FA would be a marvellous acknowledgement of their determination to care for supporters who, on this occasion, through no fault of their own, are now exposed to considerable expense. The cost of hiring a coach surely can’t be too much to ask?’

This Evening it's the Trust AGM for 2021

24th November 2021
Come and attend the Trust AGM tonight, either in person at the Midland Hotel or on Zoom. This is your chance to listen to what the Trust has been up to for the past year and ask questions.

We encourage questions, discussion and debate.

Members who receive our regular emails will be able to download our Draft Agenda and Papers for this evening. 

For our AGM to be quorate, we need 20 Members in attendance. Only Members can vote. Join here.

The AGM will start at 7pm, so please arrive in good time to order a drink at the bar. We will be in the hotel reception area to gather members from 6.30pm. The AGM has been arranged to be held in the Midland Room upstairs. There is a lift and also an onsite car park with a barrier to get in and out. Members will need to collect a token from reception to exit this.

Please contact us at hello@bantamstrust.co.uk if you intend to come, or want to attend on Zoom. 

The Join Zoom Meeting details are:

Meeting ID: 847 1458 1702
Passcode: 383953

Trust Statement on the FA ruling decision regarding City’s FA Cup 1st Round Replay at Exeter

22nd November 2021
Bantams Supporters Trust shares the sentiment of the Supporters Board that was put out on social media on the 18th November.

Here it is in full:

“The Bradford City Supporters Board was dismayed to see todays judgement by the FA in relation to the use of a 6th substitute by Exeter City Football Club in their ‘The Emirates FA Cup’ 1st round relay against Bradford City AFC

“The decision to impose a second replay seems to be a decision which does not consider the impact on our supporters. The promise of a repeat midweek trip to Exeter seems unfair on both our club and also the fans who follow their team the length and breadth of the country. 

“We hope the FA can reconsider the impact of this decision on fans and can work with the clubs involved to find a way forwards that is more suitable to all.”

This statement can be seen here.

The Trust has since made some further enquires to the FSA and Exeter City Supporters Trust Colleagues.

It has become clear that the match officials on the night didn't know what rules this competition was governed by in terms of fielding substitutes and Exeter City therefore, were not at fault.

However, we welcome Exeter Supporters’ Trust’s offer of free tickets to those who travelled to the original replay, for the rescheduled one on Tuesday 30th November, and Exeter City Football Club will not profit from the game, whereby, proceeds will be donated to charity.

More will follow

Bantams Supporters Trust AGM Invite & Draft Agenda Papers

18th November 2021
You are cordially invited to our Supporters’ Trust Annual General Meeting, to be held on Wednesday 24th November, from 7pm, in the Midland Hotel, in Bradford City Centre, near Forster Square Train Station.

At the AGM you will be able to hear about what the Trust has been doing throughout the year, and you will be able to hear about the purpose of its policy motions. We encourage questions, discussion and debate.

Members who receive our regular emails will be able to download our Draft Agenda and Papers for the evening. 

If you would like to submit any Agenda items for the AGM, the deadline for submissions is Tuesday, 23 November. 

For our AGM to be quorate, we need 20 Members in attendance. Only Members can vote.

The AGM will start at 7pm, so please arrive in good time to order a drink at the bar. We will be in the hotel reception area to gather members from 6.30pm. The AGM has been arranged to be held in the Midland Room upstairs. There is a lift and also an onsite car park with a barrier to get in and out. Members will need to collect a token from reception to exit this.

Please contact us at hello@bantamstrust.co.uk if you intend to come, or want to attend on Zoom. Teas and coffees can be available during the meeting but we need to know the numbers before to facilitate this.

The Join Zoom Meeting details are:

Meeting ID: 847 1458 1702
Passcode: 383953

Reminder About Our AGM

12th November 2021
Our AGM is on Wednesday, 24th November and will be in the Midland Hotel in Bradford City Centre, near Forster Square Train Station. 

On the 18th of this month we will send you our draft agenda papers and Zoom details for those that would like to attend in person but cannot get there.

If you would like to submit a Nomination Form to become a Trust Board Member, this needs to be received by Wednesday 17th. Failing that, you can request to be a Board member at any time of the year and co opt you on to the Board. You can see here to find out about what it means to get involved.

There are 9 vacancies to fill to make up a Trust Board of 15 representatives.

This is your opportunity to make your voice be heard and contribute to making us stronger in terms of building the Trust membership and finances, but also to influence the Club in securing it’s long term success and longevity, and bringing in supporter led initiatives along the way that improve the match day experience for all. The existing Trust Board would like to see new Trust Board Members that have new ideas and proposals that will broaden our reach.

You can bring your work and voluntary experiences to us, whether that is on social media, IT, secretarial, financial, fundraising, marketing, negotiating and representing people, running a youth club or a local football team or bar. You may be good at putting socials on, or being a good compere. If there is anything that you can do / offer to contribute, large or small, it will be appreciated. You can volunteer your time as little or as much as you are comfortable with. Any contribution will be warmly received and greatly appreciated.

To fill in the Trust Board Nomination Form, simply fill in your details and write a brief summary of why you would like to be a Board member including how long you’ve been a City fan, your skills and attributes, and send us an email at hello@bantamstrust.co.uk with your completed form attached.

If you would like to submit any Agenda items for the AGM, the deadline for submissions is this Tuesday, 23 November.

The AGM will start at 7pm, so please arrive in good time to order a drink at the bar. We will be in the hotel reception area to gather members from 6.30pm. The AGM itself will be held in the Midland Room upstairs. There is a lift and also an onsite car park with a barrier to get in and out. Members will need to collect a token from reception to exit this.

Please contact us at hello@bantamstrust.co.uk if you intend to come, or want to attend on Zoom. Teas and coffees can be available during the meeting but we need to know the numbers before to facilitate this.

Become an Active Member of the Trust

8th November 2021
Being an active Trust Member can be quite rewarding, as you will be playing a positive role within the Bradford City community that we can all identify with.

It can be as much or as little as involvement as you like, as we are all busy people with job and family commitments.

Playing a role in the Trust can mean a variety of things; it can mean attending meetings, providing ideas of things we can do to promote the Trust and raise money to keep us going whilst at the same time provide benefits to members; it can mean planning and organising public events to raise money for various community initiatives that are inclusive and encourage diversity and a coming together; it can mean having good listening skills or public speaking. You may be good with figures, or someone who likes writing and talking notes.

Think about work roles; what do you do well at when you are at work? IT; writing reports; applying for funding of projects; commercial experience; social media, promoting events, speaking to the public, supporting people; you maybe good at motivating people; or enjoy working in a team. Communication is a vital ingredient of what the Trust is about on so many levels, from engaging with the Club, communicating with members and communicating within the Trust Board and with our affiliated colleagues within the Football Supporters Association (FSA).

What is the Trust Board?
The Trust Board is an elected body of Trust members that represent the Trust collectively and accountable to you, the members. These members are volunteer directors and run the day-to-day business of the Trust, having meetings once a month. It’s three key director roles consist of a Chair, Secretary and Treasurer. 

Join the Bantams Supporters’ Trust Board
The Trust Board has a maximum of 15 permitted and we have up to 8 Board vacancies available this year.

Roles available include, Secretary, Social Media Officer, Membership Officer, Women’s Officer and Fundraising and Events Officers. 

Come to our AGM
Every year, we encourage members to nominate themselves. This is done by filling out a form that requires a statement explaining why you wish to become Trust Board members. If there are more nominations submitted than the number of vacancies required this will trigger an election

Our Annual General Meeting will be held on Wednesday 24th November, in the Midland Hotel from 7pm.

The AGM is our highest democratic body that discusses how we have developed, encouraging debate and discussion about the tasks we have ahead of us and how we need to improve and reach out. We also votes on adopted policies that improve how we are organisationally, democratically and accountably.

All Bradford City fans that are curious and want to find out more about the Trust are very welcome to attend, but only members can vote. Be a Member, Be a Patron Member.

Attending the AGM
We encourage all members to attend, as we have a quorum (minimum attendance) of 20 to attend in order to formally ratify the decisions made by those present at the meeting. 

Furthermore, you will be able to attend in person or on Zoom. To cater for all, we encourage you to express your interest / intent to attend, or indeed if you have any queries about getting involved in the Trust, please get in touch with us by emailing, hello@bantamstrust.co.uk.

We will be sending you all the AGM papers and Zoom details shortly.

Joining the Trust Board
This is YOUR chance to help set the direction of your Trust.

Being a Trust Board member can give you experiences to put on your CV, and the voluntary work; being able to work alongside and with other organisations, such as Supporters Trusts, FSA and other bodies may lead to new career paths as well as serving as a vital component within our Trust promoting our aims, from being a guiding hand to Bradford City to promoting our work among it’s supporter base.

Training is regularly offered and you will always feel supported.

To fill out the nomination form fill out the nomination form by clicking the button below. We can help you fill out the forms.

Click here to access the Board role descriptions for Chairperson, Secretary and Treasurer. Many of the tasks, qualities and skills are transferable to other job roles needed.

Nominations must be received by Wednesday 17th November 2021.
Election Nomination Form

Updated Contact Information linked to our New Website

5th November 2021
First of all we would like to welcome any new members who have signed up to the Trust in recent days. 

We are pleased to inform all those who have signed up to receive our emails that we have migrated our contact information – the email address that you will now receive correspondence will be hello@bantamstrust.co.uk which is linked to the new website that we have recently set up.

We have taken the decision to move to a new website because our old one, www.bcst.co.uk will no longer be operational from December 7th and therefore the old contact email contact@bcst.co.uk will no longer work after that date.

The old website was unreliable to operate and because it operated on an outdated platform, it became too problematic to sustain. The new website is feature rich and more much more reliable as well as secure so we have set up this one to allow us to have an online web presence for the foreseeable future.

So to recap, from now on you’ll be receiving your Trust news / Fan Mail Updates from hello@bantamstrust.co.uk which is linked to our new website.

If you are reading this from our social media links and want to receive our email news, you can join us free here.

You can also support us financially by being a patron here. Every contribution large or small helps to keep us going.

What is the Trust?

3rd November 2021
Who we are…
Bantams Supporters Trust is unique as it seeks to influence our Club in putting fans’ interests at the heart of everything it does. 

As a Mutual Benefit Society, we are a not-for-profit organization based on which basically means we are not for profit, democratic and representative principles, and exist independently of the club.

We were set up in 2002 when Bradford City was in financial crisis after it became clear that ex-Chairman Geoffrey Richmond had mismanaged the Clubs’ finances. In 2004, we played a leading role in fundraising for the ‘Save Our City’ campaign that raised £250,000 to keep our Club in business.

Being part of a wider supporters movement
Bantams Supporters Trust, are one 140 plus Supporters Trusts in the UK, and all English and Welsh football supporters Trusts are affiliated to the national football supporters body, FSA (Football Supporters Association). On issues that affect all supporters, we are at our most effective, standing together in unison.

What we do
We are in touch regularly with:
• Trust members and City fans by email, social media and special surveys to find out your views 
• The club by meeting directly with CEO Ryan Sparks and as a member of the club’s Supporters’ Board
• National networks of other fans in League One and League Two clubs through the Football Supporters Association (FSA)
• Local community groups such as Bangla Bantams
• Local organisations such as the Independent Advisory Group of West Yorkshire Police 

We raise money that:
• Goes back to the club through player sponsorship and other routes, 
• Supports local charities such as the Plastic Surgery and Burns Unit 
• Or other good causes such as the Bradford City Women’s Football Club

Our job is to use all our contacts to identify issues of concern to City fans, to represent your interests, and to make a difference with practical initiatives.

How we go about our work
We are all volunteers, led by Trust Board Members and Officers elected at our AGM.
All members can participate in the AGM, submit their own motions for democratic decision or put themselves forward as candidates to be elected on to the Board. 
The Trust Board meets monthly and Board Members are accountable to our members generally.

What are our current priorities?
We are working on a number of issues at the moment:
• Keeping football affordable in all manner of ways.
• Listing Valley Parade as an Asset of Community Value (ACV) with Bradford Council.
• Trialing Safe Standing.
• Contributing to the Government’s Fan-led Review, the best chance in years to influence government policy in fans’ favour, in order to narrow the gap between the poorest and wealthiest clubs and to strengthen supporter representation within the game.
• Moving towards a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) as a formal agreement with the club that will identify common ground and deepen the relationship between our club and its supporters.
How do I Join the Trust?
The basic membership of the Trust is free, and open to all Bradford City supporters.

Join the Trust for free here

We also have Patron members, who support the Trust financially by paying an annual subscription by standing order. The amount is your choice, from £3 a year upwards. Patron members help us cover our costs and enable us to give back even more to the club and other good causes.

Become a Patron Member here

We’ll be on the Main Stand Concourse ahead of our 3pm K.O. against Forest Green

28th October 2021
Bantams Supporters Trust will be doing another awareness stall on the concourse of the main stand between 1.30 and 2.30 to raise the profile of the Trust and encourage involvement.

We would like to say thank you to those members who came up to us to say hello before the Bristol Rovers game. You know who you are.

We raised over £35 pounds and we were asked about the scarves that we had on sale. They will be there again, priced at £10. We have in the pipeline our own Supporters Trust scarves to sell soon, and we will be putting out our button badges and stickers as well. The leaflets and donations tin go without saying. Donations are always welcome. 

If you would like to be a Patron member or give a one off donation online please click here.

We do have a small amount of pin badges that we have left from when we last produced them with our old square quartered BCST logo, priced at £3.50 each, we will bring to the stall as well. We also have 3 copies left of the ‘Stand Up Sit Down – A Choice to watch Football’, by Peter Caton, priced £10.

See you there!

Save The Date
Bantams Supporters Trust AGM
24th November 2021

25th October 2021
We would like to invite you to our Annual General Meeting, to be held on Wednesday 24th November, in the Midland Hotel from 7pm.

The AGM is our main public event every year that demonstrates our democratic processes facilitated through our policies.

Every year members can expect reports of how the Trust as an organization has developed, our achievements and plans for the future on how we are expanding our reach, and your Trust Board that is accountable to you, the membership, can confidently say, that we are turning a corner on this.

All Bradford City fans who are curious and want to find out more about the Trust, what we are about and what we do are welcome to attend, but only members can vote. Be a Member, Be a Patron Member.

Members may be aware that we have had an AGM & Fans Forum earlier this year, in April, but it was actually delayed from 2021 due to a combination of factors, such as Covid restrictions, fixture rearrangements and confirmation of the speaker. The Trust Board felt that in order to get our AGM back on track for 2021, we simply organize the AGM with no frills.

Join the Bantams Supporters’ Trust Board
This is YOUR chance to help set the direction of your Trust. With a maximum of 15 Board Members permitted we currently have up to 8 BST Board vacancies available.

Roles available include, Secretary, Social Media Officer, Fundraising and Events Officers. We are always on the look out for board members to bring fresh ideas and expertise for the benefit of Bradford City Supporters. For example developing supporter-led projects and community initiatives.
If you have any skills, experience or interest in any of these areas and you are a current Trust Member and are interested in putting yourself forward for election to the BST Board, please see the attached nomination form.

Where the number of nominations we receive exceeds the maximum number available, then an election will be run.

Nominations must be received by Wednesday 17th November 2021.

Attending the AGM
We encourage all members to attend, as we have a quorum (minimum attendance) of 20 to attend in order to formally ratify the decisions made by those present at the meeting. To this end, as well as this email being received by members and on social media, we are also distributing a 1,000 leaflets advertising our event and promoting it through the local press.

Furthermore, you will be able to attend in person or on Zoom. To cater for all, we encourage you to express their interest/intent to attend, or indeed if you have any queries about getting involved in the Trust, please get in touch with us by emailing, hello@bantamstrust.co.uk.

We will be sending you all the AGM papers and Zoom details shortly.
Trust Policy BST Nomination Form

The Trust meets with Ryan Sparks & Progress is being made

21st October 2021
Trust representatives, Manny Dominguez and Alan Carling met with Ryan Sparks on Monday 11th October as part of the trust and Club commitment to structured dialogue.

Indeed, there were many positives to take from this, most notably the idea of an Asset of Community value. We began by looking at the highlights of what was discussed when we last met on the 24th June of this year. 

iFollow
The debate about should iFollow been continued whilst there are so many people that still have or are contracting Covid, or are having to self isolate etc. was raised. We explained that from the context of the current ban on televising live football at 3pm on Saturdays, it is still current policy that FSA fully supports the continuation of it, and Trust reps through our own League One and Two Network have had our own debate. With that in mind there are still a conversation to be had with the EFL about Clubs being able to screen the iFollow matches during the 3pm Saturday kick offs for only those with specific Covid related health needs as opposed to being freely available to everyone.

Ryan said that the Club was part of an EFL member Club survey and they were in favour of wanting to screen iFollow matches, especially our away games. And that Sky have a big influence in television rights with the EFL.

We also asked Ryan when the Club attends their EFL meetings, if they are aware results of consultation surveys EFL is involved in with the FSA, or when FSA reports it’s findings to the EFL. He confirmed he wasn’t aware of any.

Fan-led Review
Manny gave an update about the Fan-Led review, saying that Tracey Crouch MP will be giving her full recommendations in a report at the end of the month after chairing meetings of the DCMS appointed group in consultation with all the FSA Networks of affiliates and associate partners. And he explained that we have signed an FSA open letter to the new DCMS Secretary, Nadine Dorries that includes over a 100 signatories, requesting that she presses on with football reform.

ACV
Alan Carling led on explaining what an Asset of Community Value (ACV) is and that it is community organisations like supporters trust that put in an application to the local authority to list football grounds as an ACV, in this case Valley Parade, and this would remain for a 5 year period where the application would need to be renewed. As part of the ground being listed Alan also explained it gives us the right to bid as well.

Alan spoke about the emotional and social wellbeing importance of what our home ground means to people. You can find out more about what an ACV is here, and there is a very short video explainer here.

Ryan didn’t think the Club would necessarily be wholly in favour of it but wouldn’t object to it being listed. He made positive suggestion about promoting it widely and potentially using the Supporters Board as a vehicle to get our idea across. Ryan was a little cautious about supporting us doing anything about it immediately however.

Trust Matters
Manny explained that the Trust are working with Bangla Bantams to put on an event that would involve fundraising and will need a player to attract people to attend. It would be a 1pm Saturday start, and the Trust has a signed football signed by all our Premier League players. The event would be designed to attract the Clubs traditional fan-base whilst bringing together the local community around Bangla Bantams, and Ryan wanted to support this initiative.

Ryan was also made aware that the Trust has come into possession of some very old season ticket booklets with one going as far back as 1908/09 and there is a good opportunity to have them as part of a Christmas raffle that James Mason is organizing at the Memories Café at Napoleon’s.

Other Trust matters for consultation
Manny explained that the Trust has other matters it would like to consult the club about where we would like to be involved with. At the moment these are:
• Keeping City affordable in a number of ways.
• Railed Seating
• Fan-led Review recommendations / FSA proposals – (will have to be broken up into certain areas as it’s a big topic)
• Supporter Liaison Officers (SLO’s)
• Memorandum of Understanding – Ryan was interested in signing up for this.

Ryan’s response about affordability was that he feels we are very affordable already and they have plans to be even more affordable over the festive period, offering a cheaper package.

When asked about the Fanzone, he is keen to have the raised level North of the Kop where the ticket office area as the place to be the fanzone for having a drink. Manny asked if they had plans for real ale there, and suggested involvement of the North Parade bars, and the plan is for lager being the dominant drink which is a guaranteed seller, and that if it doesn’t get the green light from the local Safety Advisory Group (SAG) then there is no alternative venue as there is a very tight space around the ground. The plan is for it to be operational next year.

Financial
Ryan is very confident about the Club’s progress and financially revenue is up as we are receiving a larger footfall through the turnstiles and significant improvements have been made in other departments, meaning for a better financial future with more revenue being pumped into the playing budget.

Formal arrangements
We agreed that while we have quarterly meetings a year we can meet sooner than that should there be a need to and if we want to bring some more detail about our other interests outlined above.

Manny agreed to send over templates for a Terms of Reference (ToR) and Memorandum of understanding (MoU).

Trust to make a presence at City ahead of the Bristol Rovers fixture on Saturday

14th October 2021
Bantams Supporters Trust have been given the green light to have an awareness stall on the concourse of the main stand between 1.30 and 2.30 to raise the profile of the Trust and encourage involvement.

Members and supporters are welcome to join and say hello and have a chat, and give a helping hand. 

On our stall we’ll have leaflets to give out explaining what the Trust is, scarves, badges, stickers and a little collections tin for donations, which are always welcome.

This activity will be the first of several public activities of the Supporters Trust this season and it will be the first time we have had a visual presence on a match day since 2012, when we were above the Club shop when it was housed in the building where the One In A Million School is.

Bangla Bantams drive creates football facilities for all fans

13th October 2021
A month ago many of you may have read in the local T&A about this project being granted approval and celebration of first day of laying the foundations of the new construction, which will include a new floodlit 4G pitch and sport centre behind the back of Valley Parade. 

Led by BEAP Community Partnership, and funded by Football Foundation, Power To Change, Sports England and Bradford Council, the project will be completed by June 2022, and during the course of the next football season will have a family orientated Fanzone for home and away fans to meet and maybe have a kickabout in the build up to home matches. There are plans to arrange five-a-side games between Bangla Bantams and visiting fans on matchdays as well.

Humayun Islam who is the Chief Executive of BEAP, got Shapla FC and Bangla Bantams going in 2015 that draws in the local Asian, predominantly Bangladeshi Community behind supporting Bradford City and engage with other Asian football supporters across the Country.

Once Fans For Diversity lead, Anwar Uddin discovered the BEAP Centre and Humayun in 2014, they have had their support since. 

The Trust became aware, have become supporters of all their achievements and we came along to the press launch of Bangla Bantams and the Fans For Diversity/Kick It Out Community Day back in February 2015.

You can read more in the FSA article here.

Safe Standing Allowed – The campaign finally wins!

28th September 2021
From 1 Jan 2022, the UK Government will be implementing a historic change which will allow... safe standing.

The Sports Ground Safety Authority made that long-awaited announcement on Wednesday 22nd September 2021. Clubs that want to take part in 'early adopter' trials of safe standing now have until 6 October to submit their applications. Trials that are approved will then begin on 1 January.

The FSA, the leading football supporter campaigning organisation has always argued that standing could be introduced – an argument backed by the overwhelming majority of supporters. There is a tradition of fans standing at games as it increases choice, improves atmospheres and ensures supporter safety when hosted in properly managed and licensed standing areas.

Kevin Miles, chief executive of the FSA and longstanding Safe Standing campaigner, who was contacted last Wednesday, said: “We are beyond delighted to finally claim a win for the FSA’s Safe Standing campaign after extra time, penalties and more than a few replays and postponements.

“Today’s announcement is the result of prolonged and sustained campaigning by football fans – a victory for ordinary people with ordinary jobs who refused to accept the Taylor Report’s contention that standing could not be managed safely…”

Bantams Supporters Trust Chair, Manny Dominguez, says he is delighted! “I’ve long been an advocate of safe standing and decided to take the campaign to City when I found there was a grassroots campaign called ‘Stand UP Sit Down’. I petitioned City fans home and away from 2006/7 at football grounds in the wind and rain and pubs and in recent years I finished making a giant City scarf like banner that I took to City and away matches in the 2017/18 season, and now it’s becoming real! 

“The question will be of course, when will all clubs including City be able to provide a genuine choice to stand or sit. Also, how can it be costed will be the central question for all-seater clubs like ours in the lower tiers of the EFL. We would like to be of assistance and advice on this”

You can see the statement from the Sports Ground Safety Authority (SGSA) here. See the FSA article here.

Supporters Groups call on new Minister to press on with reform

27th September 2021
Bantams Supporters Trust along with more than 100 supporters’ organisations from across England and Wales have co-signed an open letter to Nadine Dorries MP, the new secretary of state for Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.

The letter welcomes the minister to the role after the recent cabinet re-shuffle and encourages her to ensure the Government fixes football governance via the Fan-Led Review. 

“Football clubs are at the heart of their communities, cultural institutions which bring a sense of identity, pride and belonging for millions of people every week. They deserve protection,” says the letter. 

“We know that you will receive the final report from Tracey Crouch MP later this year, and would urge you to retain the commitment to independent regulation.”

Tracey Crouch MP is leading the Fan-led Review of Football Governance and her interim report was clear that radical reform is needed to change the power structures of the game and protect clubs from rogue owners, including the need for independent regulation.

More than 100 FSA-affiliated and associated supporters’ groups in the men’s and women’s game, including those from clubs at the top of the sport to non-league level, have co-signed the letter.

You can see the list of all the organisations that have signed the FSA’s open letter, plus a link to all the FSA’s affiliate and associate football supporter organisations here. The open letter can be read in full here.

Tracey Crouch’s interim report can be found in full here.

Survey findings regarding attitudes to the return to stadiums

16th September 2021
The findings of the FSA survey about attitudes to the return to stadiums shared with the EFL show what most people would’ve expected.
A majority, were willing to return as soon as the season started. Identity of being a football fan was major factor and that a desire to get back to normal was strong.

While the survey that initially went live in early July reveal an eagerness to return to stadiums this season, asking all age groups of both men and women, a significant minority had said they felt apprehensive.

Some fans delaying their return
Waiting to see how a return to stadiums would impact on the pandemic and wanting to see their clubs demonstrate they were safe for fans to return were the main factors in apprehensiveness in returning too hastily.

Other findings reveal that:
Most fans were opposed to reduced capacities or masks being made compulsory, and that away attendances would not be expected to fall once the season had begun.

For a more in depth look at how fans responded including figures, and who completed the survey, please see more here.

These findings were shown to the Club and Supporters Board, and it was felt that the Club had provided the appropriate Covid guidance measures in place, such as publishing it’s guidance policy on its website and signage around the ground as well as providing other measures such as sanitizer, contactless payments and so on within the stadium.

Order your Retro City Trust Shirt

10th September 2021
Our classic City designs of the past with our logo on them are continuing to sell, and we now have babygrows to welcome your new Bantam into the world.

We are continuing to work in partnership with Chablais Sport/World Retro to bring you our classic range of City shirts and now including babygrows.

The shirts also have Bradford Central Foodbank (who we’ve worked to support) logo on the shirtsleeves.

Proceeds of the shirts go to supporting us as well as the Foodbank.

Shirt costs £35 including delivery.
Babygrows are just £31.50.
A name and /or number can be added free of charge as well.
A bargain!

You can order your retro shirt here.

You can get in touch with them directly at this email address: fans@world-retro.com
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