No way back

Whilst I am no longer an active supporter of Bristol Rovers, it gives me no pleasure to read the lengthy whingeing resignation letter by its chairman Jim Chappell on the BRSC website. I make no comment on the ‘letter of concern’ to which Chappell refers, which appears to be the main area of concern to both BRSC and Bristol Rovers Football Club (BRFC), not least because the outgoing chairman appears to be in a litigious mood. What we do know is that the club has taken from BRSC most of its remaining functions, which is selling programmes and running the 50/50 matchday draw where half of the proceeds go to the holder of the winning ticket and the other half, nominally at least, to support youth development at the football club. My big question is this: is that all they did?

Chappell attacks the directors and it the club’s hired hands, not least on the grounds that none of them are actually Gasheads. Some of us have been saying that for years, but concludes Chappell, “I sincerely believe that the President genuinely loves the club which is more than can be said of the Directors.” Why’s that? Because he says so? I find it very hard to understand how in middle age you can suddenly start to love a football club, especially when you already love another one, in Wael al Qadi’s case Chelsea. But Chappell is an honourable man so who am I to doubt him?

He rails against the diminishing of the President’s Club, a group of largely well-off elderly men who apparently raise money for the football club but for a time actually paid less for admission than ordinary punters on the terraces, when ordinary fans have long regarded the organisation as a laughing stock. But it’s the functions of BRSC that are the issue here. Because under the leadership of Jim Chappell they did little or nothing to represent BRSC members. Let’s look at the evidence:

• The 50/50 draw money goes into a big pot at the football club. The club spends X amount on the youth side. Would it have done so anyway, without the 50/50 money? If the money these days is kept aside for the youth side, because it didn’t used to be, then fair play to all concerned.
• BRSC sells programmes on behalf of the football club. Why? Because they always have. This was not the first occasion on which the club considered taking the sales in house, as Chappell well knows.
• BRSC sells tickets for away travel.
• BRSC members get preferential treatment for tickets for big games. Older supporters will remember those days.
• Er…
• That’s it.

Yes, in the past supporters have paid to put a roof on the Thatchers End but what has BRSC done since the late 2000s to improve the lot of fans? Not a lot.

In the early 2000s, there were attempts to involve supporters in the running of the club. Trusts were set-up, an offshoot of BRSC organised the Share Scheme whereby supporters collectively would become shareholders of the club. Chappell states: “According to the Share Scheme Agreement that I am a signatory to, the Supporters Club is entitled to two Directors on the Board and we have two nominations that are being forwarded to the Football Club.” I was at virtually all the early meetings of that offshoot committee and I never saw Chappell at one of them. In fact, it was run despite BRSC, not because of it. BRSC did indeed purchase shares and later its own directors voted to dilute their value, presumably at the behest of BRSC committee. Well over £1 million of supporters’ money for what? To sell programmes? To sell 50/50 tickets? To book bus trips?

There were numerous attempts to improve and modernise the club but apart from a brief period in the early 2000s, BRSC showed no interest in so doing. And now we end up with a Supporters Club with no functions and no influence at a club which appears to be in freefall, on and off the pitch.

I share Chappell’s concerns about the board and the other hired hands employed by the president Mr al Qadi and regret the culling of decent people such as the programme editor and the PA man. But a fish rots from the head down and so, in my experience, does a football club.

BRSC is dead and it cannot be saved. For years, it was little more than another establishment mouthpiece, handing over money to the football club without gaining any influence. It never changed with the times when at other clubs fans sought and gained recognition in other ways. It was content to bumble along, doing the half-time draw, flogging programmes and taking a coach load of fans to away games when almost everyone else made their own way. I repeat: well over £1 million donated to the club through the share scheme alone, as well as God knows how much by other donations throughout its existence.

The choice is very simple. Either a new fans’ organisation is formed from the ashes of the old one and recruits enough members and, crucially, raises large sums of money, neither of which the club could ignore or nothing happens. I suspect I already know the answer: there will be no new fans’ organisation because the people, who would have to be younger and more imaginative than us old codgers who have been there and largely failed, aren’t there.

If Chappell was declaring war, to fight another day for the club we know he loves, people might have some sympathy. But his sour, self-pity is the end for him, as it will be for the organisation he served so loyally for much of his life. I think it’s sad because at heart he’s a very decent man who always did what he believed was right for Bristol Rovers. However, this is nothing more than self-immolation for him and for BRSC. And for both, there’s no way back.