The white puffs of smoke have finally appeared above Bristol Rovers Supporters Club dilapidated premises on Two Mile Hill in Kingswood.
Brian Seymour Smith, a man with no policies, has been returned to Box Number One by a comfortable margin, beating his opponent Rod Chapman who had even fewer. Trebles all round?
For some years, Rovers have had two directors who have been elected by Supporters Club members on the back of an initiative for supporters, the Supporters Club Share Scheme, to have a greater say in the running of the club. Much water has flowed under the bridge since the scheme came about and £1 million has been donated to the football club to help deal with the continuing losses, to pay off some of the debts, these days held by board members, and to invest in the playing side. well, that worked, didn’t it? If the scheme had gone to plan, the Supporters Club would have held 28% of shares at the club, blocking major decisions that could be made, like selling the ground. But it didn’t go to plan, the Supporters Club voted to dilute their own shareholding at a club general meeting and now, despite that million quid, they now own half the shareholding they held before the scheme started. D’oh!
The two directors now, Brian Seymour Smith and Ken Masters now hold strange roles at the club. Whilst they are full executive members, they carry between them something like 3.5% of the shares at meetings. They purport to represent Supporters Club members but cannot report back to them on a huge raft of issues, on the grounds of confidentiality.
I do not see what it is they do that could not be done by other directors. Over the years, I have spoken with and dealt with a variety of club officials. I did not need a fans’ representative to find something out for me when I could write to Denis Dunford, or speak to Ron Craig on a matchday. Or Steve Burns in the club shop. They all seemed to get things done for me easily enough.
Messrs Seymour Smith and Masters’ roles are sketchy enough. They don’t seem to have any job descriptions (‘directing?’), they don’t seem to have any defined aims beyond ‘representing supporters’ which can be anything or in this case nothing.
They certainly fit the demographic of your average Rovers supporter, according to what former director David Brain once told me, in that they are senior in years, Mr Seymour Smith being in his fifties and Mr Masters well into bus pass territory. Nothing wrong with that, by the way, but they also fit the demographic of the rest of the board: middle aged and more than middle aged men.
There are two other aspects of these men that I remain uncomfortable with.
They look very much at home in Box Number One, where the men who own the club live. They are of course entitled to be there but I see it as the equivalent of two trade union barons taking their lunch in the boardroom every day rather than in the staff canteen. They want their prawn sandwiches and also to eat them.
And they were very much part of the action in the boardroom when the club was relegated to the Conference. Did they not consider their positions? I know I would have. But then I don’t think they should be there in the first place given the vagaries of their positions and that they don’t seem to do anything that others can’t do at the club. After all, Chris Jelf and Ed Ware met a group of fans in the pub a few weeks ago (but then the ‘fans’ directors live in the West Midlands and Lincolnshire respectively so I suppose a quick visit to the local is slightly more complex for them).
Anyway, Mr Seymour Smith has been re-elected and good luck to him. At least he hasn’t made any promises to break.
