GTFC as a fan-owned club?

Quoted from ginnywings

There are no assurances that can be made. Everything is a risk but the current board are not the only people in N.E.Lincs capable of running a small football club. No wonder the club is so parochial, if the fans are anything to judge by.

And there lies the problem. We are a small club, one might say dying club. Blundell Park is a liability, tarnished by a bad reputation for trouble in its environs on matchdays and crap facilities. At some point the Main Stand and Osmond may get refused a Fire Cert - its all going to be more stringent after Grenfall, Fire Officers are becoming more risk averse. "Smaller" clubs have flown past us and are now "bigger" clubs in terms of attracting fans, players, coaches and managers. The list is growing almost yearly as clubs move to new stadiums or completely redevelop in situ. In doing so they have grown attendances back to the levels of the early 60s or better, started raking in the corporate dollar and providing state of the art training, conditioning and treatment facilities.

When Kevin Drinkell headed his hat trick goal v Sheff Utd in May 1980 20k fans would have laughed if you said one day clubs like Chesterfield, Rotherham, Shrewsbury, Lincoln, Doncaster, Oxford would be considered "bigger" clubs, and that's not just because we'd just had a cracking season, with big crowds, massive away followings etc, it would be about potential, we had it then, now we don't, mainly because of Blundell Park. Back in 1980 we'd look at being on a level with Blackburn, Preston, Barnsley and Reading and Swindon in the south. Maybe even considered comparable to Hull City...(save by Radio Hullberside who ranked us below Hull FC and Hull KR reserves).

So the key question for me is what ownership structure is most likely to deliver a new stadium and training facilities in the next 5 years? I don't know the answer - but we do look a particularly unattractive proposition without that prospect...

Quoted from Yoda

My only doubts are the trust gifting Fenty all MP shares which was a crazy decision.
The trust in its current form would need overhauling, but as a club we would thrive.

The "gifting" of the shares was done as the result of a democratic decision taken by a majority most politicians can only dream of, of members of the Trust.

Quoted from barralad

The "gifting" of the shares was done as the result of a democratic decision taken by a majority most politicians can only dream of, of members of the Trust.

Thatcher winning 3 general elections (albeit with a much lower % than the Fenty share gift vote) was a democratic decision too.

Quoted from KingstonMariner

It's a yes from me. Always has been. I know the current Trust Board (or at least judging by Barra's comments) are not up for it. I can't believe that there aren't people out there who have the will and the skills to take this on. Disappointing that there aren't more people who believe it is feasible. Maybe a lot more people from Grimsby are just more passive consumers of politics, business and sport than I thought.

There are solutions to all the 'problems' people have put forward. But I suppose if enough people are content to sit back and see what happens. To an extent this reflects what happened with the Keep the Mariners Afloat campaign back in the first half of the noughts when the Tax Man was circling. Lots of people saying Fenty should stump up the money because he sold Five Star Fish for a packet. Result, bar (I think) c. £20k raised by the Trust, John Fenty stepped in to shoulder the burden.

The second part of this raises a really important point. I wasn't involved in the Trust in its original set up but it's hard to argue that despite the extremely precarious position the club was in immediately post ITV/ tax bill there was a groundswell of action orientated intervention from fans. Yes the meetings were originally well attended but there was no alternative strategy backed with enough hard cash and there was an almost audible sigh of relief when JF took the reins. My fear would again be that people who could make the difference financially would sit on their hands. I doubt the financial well-being of the area is better now than it would have been back in 2003 but the club's financial situation is nowhere near as precarious as it was back then so that should give those who actively want fan ownership some hope...

Quoted from KingstonMariner

Thatcher winning 3 general elections (albeit with a much lower % than the Fenty share gift vote) was a democratic decision too.

You'd be better using Brexit as a yardstick example..

I'm for part fan owned with a business consortium.
As a long term fan i cringe at some of the posts and comments on here from some, so 100% fan owned wouldn't work as views differ to much.
I'd be happy to invest every month an amount if a good fan led group could create a change and take the club forward in a more positive way, but fans would have to back it and put their bums on seats to ensure finances ongoing to actually give us a chance of going back up the leagues.  With no sugar daddy, if we hit a run like we just have and folk turn their back on the club, we could end up in a worse state.

One thing i do feel that GTFC cannot go on with the same set up anymore or our fan base will dwindle more and season tickets will be low giving our manager an insufficient budget to be successful.

Would I like to see GTFC as fan owned?  

That's not really the right question for the moment in my opinion.  The question should be 'would I like to see GTFC run in a professional and sustainable manner?'.   If the route to achieving that is through fan ownership (either short or long term) than yes I would be happy with that.

Whichever way you look at it, this club is run poorly.  A club with our fan base and income stream, should simply not be sitting in the position we are.  The odd season here and there you can argue bad luck, the odd poor decision but from 2003/04 where we last sat in a position matched to the size of the club, we've simply underachieved.  That's 15 years of abject failure, mis-management and downright neglect.

I simply refuse to believe that with a fan base of our size we don't have the shared skill-set to make a better fist of it than the current set-up have and are doing.   Would it be perfect? No.  Would it have teething problems? Of course.  But when the current set-up can't even get the basics right, I can't really see how a fans group would do worse.  

Naturally it would need governance and structure, it would have to have an elected board who make the decisions rather than a free-for-all but as long as they are adhered to and a sensible approach is used there is no real reason why it could and would not be more successful than the present.

The argument about needing a benefactor is null and void in my opinion.    This club has never needed a benefactor, it just got caught out by not cutting its cloth accordingly in the past.

Quoted from A.l.f.

I'm for part fan owned with a business consortium.
As a long term fan i cringe at some of the posts and comments on here from some, so 100% fan owned wouldn't work as views differ to much.
I'd be happy to invest every month an amount if a good fan led group could create a change and take the club forward in a more positive way, but fans would have to back it and put their bums on seats to ensure finances ongoing to actually give us a chance of going back up the leagues.  With no sugar daddy, if we hit a run like we just have and folk turn their back on the club, we could end up in a worse state.

One thing i do feel that GTFC cannot go on with the same set up anymore or our fan base will dwindle more and season tickets will be low giving our manager an insufficient budget to be successful.

We're pulling 3,500-4,000 through the gate despite how bloody awful we are.  Even at our worst this season when fan apathy was at it's highest I don't think the home gate dropped below 3,000.  Next season will be different if Fenty stays but 2,000-2,500 season ticket holders is about the norm for us.  That's more than a lot of clubs at this level average all season, Accrington for one.  Even at our absolute lowest, we should be at the very least competitive in this division.  Shouldn't be a need for investments every month or rattling of buckets to keep the club afloat.  

Fenty goes, there's a short-term bounce and gates swell.  Income increases so you're sensible and reinvest that.  You adopt a policy where you maximise your profits and in football the best way of doing that is keeping a community feeling to the club so the next generation keeps coming through year after year after year and you make sure your customer, i.e you and me as the paying fan feel valued and appreciated
You develop your own players to sell them, which in turn helps continue the infrastructure development.  You also buy cheap, develop and sell for a profit.   Because you're developing players who are wanted by bigger clubs, there's a natural improvement on the field so you progress up the league, as a result more people come through the gates = more income.

This isn't exclusive to us as a club and it certainly isn't exclusive in the business world, you just change the product and you're describing huge multi-national organisations that make billions each year.  As your returns grow, you stretch a little bit more whilst still keeping yourself sustainable.  The point you become unsustainable you've lost control and you're gambling.  

Under Fenty we flirted with a long-term strategy for 18 months, it turned £30,000 into £700,000 in that time yet we abandoned it and went back to signing old farts on their way down the divisions.

Quoted from diehardmariner

We're pulling 3,500-4,000 through the gate despite how bloody awful we are.  Even at our worst this season when fan apathy was at it's highest I don't think the home gate dropped below 3,000.  Next season will be different if Fenty stays but 2,000-2,500 season ticket holders is about the norm for us.  That's more than a lot of clubs at this level average all season, Accrington for one.  Even at our absolute lowest, we should be at the very least competitive in this division.  Shouldn't be a need for investments every month or rattling of buckets to keep the club afloat.  

Fenty goes, there's a short-term bounce and gates swell.  Income increases so you're sensible and reinvest that.  You adopt a policy where you maximise your profits and in football the best way of doing that is keeping a community feeling to the club so the next generation keeps coming through year after year after year and you make sure your customer, i.e you and me as the paying fan feel valued and appreciated
You develop your own players to sell them, which in turn helps continue the infrastructure development.  You also buy cheap, develop and sell for a profit.   Because you're developing players who are wanted by bigger clubs, there's a natural improvement on the field so you progress up the league, as a result more people come through the gates = more income.

This isn't exclusive to us as a club and it certainly isn't exclusive in the business world, you just change the product and you're describing huge multi-national organisations that make billions each year.  As your returns grow, you stretch a little bit more whilst still keeping yourself sustainable.  The point you become unsustainable you've lost control and you're gambling.  

Under Fenty we flirted with a long-term strategy for 18 months, it turned £30,000 into £700,000 in that time yet we abandoned it and went back to signing old farts on their way down the divisions.

Town should seriously strive to have a packed BP every single home game we are talking about 6500-7000 home supporters and personally with a bit of thought and some proper marketing it should not be that difficult? At present Town have 5k regular home supporters which drops to just under 4k when things are not great so they have a good base to start from.After we beat FGR this opportunity should have been seized it wasn`t Lincoln have shown the way.GTFC need to get their backsides in gear off the field with MT involvement and Target 5k for next August the support is out there they just need to grab it,respect it and embrace it. Employees in the ticket office were quick to accuse the fans of bullying and knocking down checkatrade attendances but what innovative thinking in the last 25 years of employment in said ticket office have we seen to boost gates? Do we have anyone at GTFC who is willing to sit down with the fans and look at ticketing for next Season before this one ends with a view to boosting gates or as normal are they preparing to lick a load of envelopes in June and beg us to renew? Wake up GTFC we could easily have a go at winning a Championship for the first time since 1980. League 2 is a poor League in my opinion and never mind surviving in it we should be looking to win it outright that`s how you get the fans onside.UTM

Quoted from monkeyboy

No chance


Fans cant agree on here nevermind running a club.


No we need David Ross to come in and use all his wealth getting the club in order even if it bankrupts him.

everything gets put to a vote and majority wins, simples.
a forum site where people can vent their opinions has absolutely no reflection on whether a group of supporters could run a football club