Thursday 26th August, 20102 years ago, at the end of August
Could the City Gent be banned from Valley Parade?
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It’s funny how by inadvertently spotting something by chance then leads on to something quite puzzling – and then quite worrying. A friend alerted me to a reader’s letter which appeared in the sporting letters section of The Yorkshire Post on Monday 9 August, attacking City Gent editor Mike Harrison. Knowing that I contribute to the fanzine, my friend said I should take a look.
The letter had been written by Kevin Mitchell, a long-standing City supporter who used to produce the content for City’s Clubcall phone news service, and was a reaction to opinions Mike had shared for the paper’s previewing of the new season.
But the tone and nature of Mitchell’s attack seemed unjustifiably harsh. So I contacted Mike to find out what was going on. Although reluctant at first, he pointed me to his Yorkshire Post piece and explained how he had made what he considered to be tongue-in-cheek remarks, but which had upset one of the club’s joint Chairmen in particular.
Mitchell was close to the Board during Geoffrey Richmond’s reign; and while his response to Mike’s comments might be a coincidence, it could also be speculated whether he sent it in knowing how the Board felt. But if anything that was the least of Mike’s concerns, as he’d been informed the club is considering banning the City Gent from Valley Parade.
The offending article was part of the Yorkshire Post’s pre-season preview, where a supporter of each regional club was asked to share their predictions on matters such as where their team will finish and who the key player will be. Mike, who has contributed to this annual feature for a number of years, offered lukewarm views on City’s prospects for the season ahead, and made one particular comment which the Board appears to have taken as a dig at them.
Mike explained to BfB, “The first I knew that they were upset came after I received an unexpected phone call from Peter Taylor! It’s the first time he’d phoned me and he wanted to check if I’d said something about him having a bigger players’ budget than Stuart McCall in the YP. I knew I hadn’t, and I said I’d find out who had and he seemed okay with that.” (It turned out to be Terry Dolan).
As it was a Thursday and the media pitch up at VP to do their weekend interviews, Mike went along to Valley Parade armed with the Terry Dolan interview to pass on to Taylor and with his own fans’ view, just in case the City manager was upset by his comments.
“It was while I was waiting to speak to Taylor that Head of Operations David Baldwin approached me with his objections to the Yorkshire Post piece,” Mike revealed. “David left me in no uncertain terms that my comments were seen in a bad light and he reminded me about the fact they let City Gent have free rein in and around VP, plus I had offended them last season when an email written for the Internet Bantam list ended up being seen by the Board via the Official Message Board.
“It seems that their main gripe was that they were not happy with my flippant comment when asked ‘What changes need to be made off the field?’ And I replied ‘There are too many to list’. I was certainly left in no uncertain terms that City Gent’s future at VP was in doubt and would be discussed by the Board and that he would be phoning me soon.
“Not long after, Mark Lawn appeared and as he wandered past me in the corridor outside the 1911 club he said sarcastically ‘that was really positive what you said in the Yorkshire Post, Mike’. As I had already spoken to Baldwin I didn’t respond and neither did I say anything to him as he walked past me again a few moments later.”
This exchange took place prior to the Shrewsbury defeat. And although Mike has still yet to be called in, Baldwin confirmed to City Gent contributor Mark Neale at the Stevenage game that the threat of a ban remains. Baldwin is now away on holiday. No decision has been made so far on whether to ban City Gent from being sold in and around the stadium on matchdays.
It should be noted that Mike did not exactly dismiss City’s chances for the season in the Yorkshire Post article; instead he adopted a note of caution and predicted an eighth-place finish. On the question ‘Where will you finish?’ Mike responded, “I have learned my lesson from the last three years, when I was far too optimistic about our chances. So, this time I really am going into a new season not expecting much from the team. That way, it should be easier to handle the disappointment that seems to come with being a supporter of Bradford City. Either that, or the reverse psychology will work on our players and we’ll win the title by 10 points!”
Sadly this meaning was missed when the sub editor of the Yorkshire Post cut Mike’s comments drastically from his original reply sent to journalist Richard Sutcliffe. Another comment that had annoyed the Board and Mitchell, where Mike was reflecting on the mood of some fans unhappy with the constant changing of managers at Valley Parade, was the light-hearted response to a question about offering advice to the manager, “Think of your time managing City as good experience for the next job.”
“To be honest I was totally shocked by the comments of Baldwin and Lawn”, added Mike. “I went to VP thinking ‘phew I’m glad didn’t upset Peter Taylor because it was Terry Dolan and then when he’d actually seen the quote he seemed okay with it’. And yet I walked into something else which was totally unexpected.
“To be honest, the off the field stuff I was referring to in the YP was the embarrassment I felt having a former player locked up – though Taylor admitted to me he would have signed him had he not been convicted for murder – and a newly signed player being jailed for allegedly beating up his girlfriend and not telling City about it.
“Lawn trumpeted the fact that a new training ground was found and he had a go at Bradford Council for the fact the club had to go to Leeds to train, but the deal fell through and the first City fans heard about it was when the players reported for pre season training back at Apperley Bridge. How embarrassing was that? If the Board are not as embarrassed as I am on just those three topics well I can’t legislate for the fact that some of them appear not to have a sense of humour.
“Whether or not there is a wider question here about the Board’s paranoia about what fans say about them and a desire from them to quell anything that is deemed negative about them I’ll leave that up to the City fans to make their own minds up about.”
It’s clear City’s Board is unhappy that negative opinions of City appeared in a prominent newspaper. And there is a clear link between it and their own PR efforts of recent months. Throughout the summer we’ve had endless updates about how great the new playing surface is, we’ve heard that Roger Owen played a proactive role in fixing a leak on a stand roof and, last Friday, there was a bizarre piece on the website about how he and his wife had sorted out the players’ suits.
Great effort from them both, worth commending internally and maybe in the Chairmen’s programme notes. But a news story? There’s an increasing nature of the Board telling us how well things are going off the field and how brilliant Taylor is. Owen, who publicly criticised McCall when he was manager, seemed to be using this story as a chance to praise Taylor for insisting on high appearance standards. But City fans will judge Taylor by how well he get his players performing on the pitch; looking nice before kick off isn’t going to have any bearing on the league table.
As regular readers of the City Gent will know, Mike and other contributors have been wholly positive about Taylor since arriving as manager last February, but the scars of disappointment in recent years and the less than sensitive way some Board members and a section of supporters chased McCall out of the club have left a weary and cynical outlook for some fans. Sure Taylor is great and all, but how long until some people turn on him like many did on McCall, Colin Todd, Paul Jewell and others? And as for getting wildly excited at the start of the season and believing this promotion favourites rubbish; have we learned nothing?
We at BfB have received heavy criticism from a number of fans in recent days for not backing Taylor strongly enough, despite the fact that for months numerous articles have been published offering praise for the manager. Our failing, in these people’s eyes, seems to be that we’ve not joined them in offering over-the-top complements for every little action he undertook over the summer, which inevitably included slating McCall as a poor comparison. Some of the praise Taylor received from others was well-intended but largely meaningless. And it didn’t count for much when many of these same people tore into Taylor after the Torquay loss.
There is no editorial policy whatsoever at BfB, so I can’t comment for how others who write for the site feel. Taylor has my 100% support and I back him strongly, but I don’t feel the need to gush pointless praise upon him and I don’t buy the hype that all that has been wrong for the last three years is that we had a clueless ginger-headed moron holding the club back. Taylor is a great manager, but he is not a miracle worker. We hope he can succeed where McCall failed, but there’s no magic wand tucked inside his immaculate, Owen-purchased suit.
City have had nine managers in the last 11 years – and at the same time have fallen from the Premier League to League Two. These two statistics do not paint the whole picture of the troubles of the last decade, but they are surely intrinsically linked. It’s only a matter of when, not if, we will be writing articles supporting Taylor while others loudly demand he leaves – just as we did with Todd and McCall. Yet still this notion that the next manager will cure all will thrive amongst message board contributors and in the stands on match days, to the point it feels like we’re wasting our time writing anything positive or negative about whoever is in charge.
As Mike wrote on the City Gent editorial of issue 165, “Words are all well and good, but promotion this season will be won on the pitch and whilst I am convinced that we have the most experienced manager available in Peter Taylor he is no more a miracle worker than Stuart McCall, Colin Todd, Bryan Robson, Nicky Law or Jim Jeffries was or actually wasn’t as it turned out. It would be lovely to live in a world where just because someone says something will happen it actually does. Sadly life and as we all know football isn’t always like that.
“What is needed from the present squad of players is to work hard as a unit and not just as individuals. The management know this and they too will be working hard to achieve this aim. It is what they are good at. As for the fans, after a decade of seeing City tumble down the leagues and after witnessing quite a few false dawns, is it not surprising that some, myself included are not putting away past miseries to jump on a promotion bandwagon without first seeing the evidence to justify putting blind faith once again into how we support the team? Perhaps many of us are just getting far too cynical in our old age?
“So, let us see where we are after 10 games when the table starts to settle down and let us hope that for everyone connected with Bradford City Football Club from the joint chairmen down to the youngest supporter coming to VP for the first time this season that this season will be better than the past 10. Nothing would please me more.”
No one should doubt how hard the Board works on behalf of us supporters and, again speaking personally, I’m hugely grateful for the time and investment they put into running the club I love; but while they have a duty to talk up the season and get people excited, they can’t exert that control over others. Or as Mike puts it, “Neither BfB or City Gent are unpaid PR vehicles for what only they want broadcasting.
“I’ve no desire to have any confrontation with the club. If part of the Board wish to deny freedom of speech to the fans on what seems very trivial matters then I would sooner sell CG just to subscribers and at points on the way to VP that aren’t on club property.
“But we’ve always had a good relationship with the club which I wouldn’t want to spoil. They’ve benefited from any profits we make in the form of youth team player sponsorship and cash to help pay for James Hanson’s transfer fee, which I assume they appreciate.”
Mike has submitted a letter to the Board explaining his Yorkshire Post remarks, in an attempt to smooth out the relationship and negate the perceived threat of the fanzine’s ban.
The City Gent famously coined the phrase Bantam Progressivism. Any ban the club decides to implement on it would be anything but.
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I really wish the actions of one of the joint chairmen (I dont need to say which one) surprised me. The club belongs to the fans, he seems to think because he owns it that it belongs to him
I am, not for the first time, utterly disgusted with the Bradford City board.
Supporting a club wholeheartedly does not equate to being in complete agreement with the board or the manager, nor does being a voice for the supporters equate with being a voice for the board.
It may be difficult for the board to ban the City Gent from sale in the surrounding area, where I and most fans buy their copy. Most significantly, Mike’s comments seem to be, yet again, over optimistic. A fact the board should be addressing, rather than bullying a harmless, entertaining publication just because they can and it does not follow the mindless party line. Free speech can hopefully still be expressed and surely sales of City Gent would fall if it did not present a realistic view of the situation, there are plenty of other areas of City information and discussion where views are less accurate, realistic and balanced, starting but not finishing with the match day programme, usually a singularly dismal publication.
It would seem that the club’s reaction, based solely on the information we have been provided with in this article, is an over-reaction, and seems to forget the often postitive and important role that fanzines such as the City Gent play. I really hope that he and the City Gent magazine are not banned from the ground, it would be a great loss.
That said, however, Mike is no idiot, he works with the media all the time, and really shouldn’t be surprised if someone ‘misinterprets’ his comments. Frankly, he should have known better than to say something like this, and now argue that it was a flippant comment in defence – a simple apology would perhaps be the best solution. From my reading of it, the City Gent magazine is not known for its humour, and so it is not surprising that some offense may have been taken with what could easily be read as a serious comment, and this when the club is trying to positively move forward after so many years of decline. As BfB articles and comments frequently suggest, the management, the team, and of course the supporters too, would all benefit from acting together in a positive way, both on and off the terraces. And sorry Mike, but that includes you too.
Which would assume that those parties are going in “a positive way”.
Personally I’m rather pleased that the recent unnecessary negative undercurrent of our fanzines has been recognised by the board. I don’t expect the articles to be propaganda filled beacons of relentless positivity but the needless sniping and sly digs at the activities of the board and manager really do bring unhelpful negativity and are in direct contradiction to the tone of the articles under the previous management where everything was portrayed as sunny and bright regardless of the depths we were reaching.
A couple of examples to illustrate my point, Mike comments that there are ‘too many things to list’ about things he would change off the field, then when placed on the back foot and asked to shed some light in what specifically he means he then lists them, players being in trouble with the law and the failure to move training ground. Is that not contradictory and also trying to be overly negative indicating that there are more problems than there actually are? The advice to the manager is another sly dig; every manager at this level is looking to move upwards so I assume that every fan contributing to the article wrote advice along the same lines. If not then it is doubtless a dig at Taylor for supposedly not being committed to the club. Thirdly there is nothing ‘bizarre’ about the article relating to Roger Owen purchasing suits for the players at Taylor’s request, we realise that they will be judged on their football results not on their fashion sense but Taylor is, rightly in my view, trying to instill a professional and businesslike attitude amongst the players. Getting them to appear in this manner rather than a bunch of Sunday league friends off for a hungover kickabout is part of this. There is nothing bizarre about either the story or its publication.
As football fans we will never all totally agree and the board accept that, it’s not about suppressing freedom of speech, it’s surely about everyone closely connected with the club pulling in the same direction. Voicing a needlessly negative view of the club to other supporters and the outside world, especially from a ‘respected’ source is less than helpful and goes against what the club are trying to do. If you’re 100% behind Taylor and the board then that’s fine, if you’re not then be a man, be brave and voice specifically what your problems are. Don’t hide behind carefully worded articles, sly digs, whispering campaigns and over-the-top negativity; these things are anything but Bantam Progressivism.
Just to add some context to your comments the “needlessly negative view of the club” had City finishing 8th in this division which – for a team which has been booed off at home this season when winning – would represent more positivity than that section of the support.
There is the “over-the-top negativity” you talk about at Valley Parade but it is not to be found in Mike Harrison’s article which says the club will finish higher this season than it has in the last three.
@Michael Wood 2010/08/26 at 10:41
Agreed, and as I said, I believe the club would be making an error in responding to the situation in the way that has been suggested that it may do within your article. But my point was that it was Mike Harrison, depending on one’s interpretation of the words he used, who was not acting positively in the first place, and then afterwards the club has responded – not particularly positively either – to his comments.
I have no problems with Mikes prediction of 8th, it isn’t too far away from my own pre season prediction although I would hardly call it positive. But as I said it is the general tone of his words which I feel are trying to be too negative.
Michael that is completely correct there is currently a growing swell of negative feelings in some sections of the support, the club are probably trying to nip this in the bud as it hardly improves our chances of pogressing does it? If you then have respected fanzines trying, possibly unitentionally, to feed this negativity you can hardly expect a positive response from the board can you?
Is this a storm in a tea cup?
I cant believe the over reaction and passion this debate is producing. Yes maybe Mike was being a bit negative or possitive depending on how you read the article, and maybe the board was upset by some things that were released.
But lets bring it into line – Have you ever agreed whole heartedly with the managers choice, Boards choice, Fans choice. Yes? and if you have how have you reacted when someone said something different? At the end of the day you can review all the aricles in preseason/early season you want and lets face it some of them will be negative and you can agree with them or not YOUR CHOICE but to ban a fanzine from the ground for the editor having a negative view is a bit OTT
Just think if everyone with a negative attitude were banned from the ground what our attendance would be? or if the board was really concerned why not just invite Mike to share a day with them and then have him write an article in the City Gent – people do not look possitively on bullying tatics.
My last point of view is if you see the world through the eyes of a pessimist you can never really be truely dissapointed :)
Onwards and upwards – if not backwards and downwards you decide….
Regardless of whether you feel Mike was naive or overly negative in his comments surely you cannot think that the board’s reaction of threatening to ban the City Gent from the ground is in any way reasonable or acceptable.
It smacks of a bunch of powerful old men sat around plotting how best to extract revenge on somebody who has inadvertently offended them.
Peter Taylor had concerns with something he thought Mike had said so he rang him they discussed it and the matter was dealt with. It’s unfortunate that his employers found it necessary to throw their weight around instead of addressing an issue and moving on.
Shame on them.
It seems Bradford City really didn’t learn anything from the Richmond era, which was the last time the City Gent was put under pressure by the board and their toadies.
The Gent was started at a time when fans could make a difference, especially at a club like Bradford City, which had Terry Newman as secretary, and almost nobody else doing anything.
Then came Richmond and success built on lies. As part of that City got far too big for its own boots, and still seem to have many people that do nothing but protect their own little empires. PR is what you have when you sell to strangers, it is not what you need to keep fans; you need either success or a sense of belonging for that.
City have had no success for a decade, and too often acts like a club that thinks its own fans are nothing but fodder. Mike Harrison’s editorial line is incredibly mild considering what has happened, and if you do not like it you can tell him, and not buy the mag.
The club on the other hand can, and should, do better than this snide and nasty threat. It smacks of little men with big mouths.
You do have to wonder if there is any point in any City fan trying to do anything other than just pay in.
And on the last point: I have heard some very disturbing things about the Bantams Past Museum.
Indeed you do Glyn but it is probably worth pointing out that were it not for those fans who do more – and indeed those fans who run CG – then in 2002 and 2004 we would have lost the club.
Like the posts above state. Peter Taylor has more dignity to deal with the issue head on rather than back stabbing such has one of the joint chairmen.
Has ‘the one’ of the joint chairmen forgot the negative comments he made after a certain game last season, threatening to plunge the club into administration.
It appears to me that ‘the Board’ are to base their decision on whether to ban or not on EDITED comments printed in the YP. The full unedited comments may still be regarded as negative and unhelpful by the Board but at least they would have been clearer on the context in which they were made. They could have invited Mr Harrison -a person I have never spoken to but recognise him when I see him- to explain his comments. It appears Mr Harrison has taken the initiative anyway and is explaining his comments via a letter to the Board. I just don’t understand why a relationship that is/should be valuable to the Club is possibly going to be affected without attempting to obtain the full statement/comments and the motivation and objectives behind those comments before discussing ‘considering banning’. If Mr Harrison was not asked to explain (as PT requested of him)by the Board before deciding what action to take then that, to me, is a mistake. Maybe Mr Harrison has been naive in not expecting the YP to edit in order to manufacture something more ‘eye catching’ or controversial. How many headlines in newspapers for example do we see have given an impression of something that has been said or done only to find, on reading the article, a quite different meaning? Apparently this issue has been running ‘prior to the Shrewsbury defeat’. The sooner Mr Harrison is allowed to put his case the better.
When Jason asked me about the Kevin’s Mitchell’s invective about me in the Yorkshire post I was quite happy to explain. To be honest, I was a bit shaken up by David Baldwin’s and Mark Lawn’s comments and on reading what Kevin Mitchell wrote I tried to laugh it off. I guess taking the stance if you can’t accept criticsm, don’t dish it out either. Not that I felt I was being outwardly negative towards the club with my comments, but they were made in jest and without malice. But if Kevin Mitchell felt so outraged by my pre season predictions then he is of course entitled to voice his opinion. Personally I felt his comments were a bit over the top, but my shoulders are broad enough to take them and as with my predictions, it’s up to the reader to make their own mind up about them.
This week I have written to everyone on the club’s board of directors and hopefully my explanation/apology will be accepted and this misunderstanding/misinterpretation of my comments can be put to one side and the matter be closed. I was quite happy to add that I will be far more careful with any future comments I make to the Yorkshire Post as I have nothing to gain from upsetting anyone and to be honest I can do without the hassle that such incidents bring about.
So, that said, I’ll try and answer some of the posted comments that have been made so far.
David Rhodes – You are correct, I should have been more careful with my comments. It’s no excuse to say that I was very busy and just rattled off the first things that came into my head. When I write for The City Gent I always think very carefully about what I am writing, but in this instance I was in a rush and of course I had no control over how it was edited to fit into the small space afforded for the pre season predictions. I’m sorry that you feel that City Gent isn’t known for its humour. I wish we could have more humour in the fanzine, but as you well know, following City in recent years has been no laughing matter! Still, I hope readers of The City Gent find the front cover cartoons amusing.
Nick Murgatroyd – You make some very good points which I totally accept. My comment about advice for Peter Taylor was a joke and he saw it that way, as he did with my front cover cartoon for issue CG165. But the reality is that we’ve seen managers come and go and so it was ever thus. Who can say if Taylor’s tenure at the helm of the City ship will be a long one or not? He only has a 12 month contract, but I am as Michael has stated, 100% behind him. As I wrote in my editorial of CG165, he is the most experienced manager available to City, though just like the previous incumbents, he’s no miracle worker but he does have the track record at succeeding at this level. Whether he does or not remains to be seen, but for all our sakes, lets hope that he does. If sometimes comments made by me or any contributors to The City Gent appear negative, then we are only reflecting the feelings of what we see and hear from our fellow City fans. The fanzine is an open forum for anyone to contribute to and if someone wishes to write something positive I’d love to receive it. A case in point is that for the next issue I have found someone who has written a positive piece about Mark Lawn and I’m more than happy to publish it. I want The City Gent to be seen as fair and balanced, but my constraints are that I can only print what is sent in to me.
Edward Oliver and Chris Newell– I hope it is just a storm in a tea cup. Had Jason not seen the Kevin Mitchell letter having an over the top go at me, chances are no one would have known about my ‘behind the scenes’ minor disagreement with the club. I do think a couple of members of the board have over reacted, but they were right to point my comments out to me. Sometimes my sense of humour gets the better of me, as it seems to have done in this instance. For some the board, what happens this season is no laughing matter so i can see why i might have upset them. As I’ve said earlier, I’ll be far more careful what i say to the Yorkshire Post in future.
Glyn Maxwell – Fans have often said to me that I’m far too diplomatic in what I write in City Gent. That may be as I like to think I’m a fair minded observer of matters on and off the field. I’m intrigued as to what you have heard about the bantamspast museum. Email me direct with your concerns if you don’t want to publish them on here.
John Loxam – You make a lot of good points and hopefully my letter to the board does bring an end to this matter of what I feel is an over reaction based on a misunderstanding.
Mike Harrison
editor – The City Gent
I’m not sure that it is accurate to suggest that the City Gent has been “wholly positive” regarding PT. I’m pretty certain one of the very first front covers was a bit of a dig at PT’s long ball football (all the big guys lined up with some sarcastic joke).
Not that I think that is a problem, the City Gent has for 25 years offered its opinion and the ability to purchase the official matchday glossy and the independent fanzine within Valley Parade is just yet another feature that makes following City a bit special.
Dan – Sorry that you missed the meaning of the front cover of CG163. The quote ‘Worldy balls’ was from Taylor who was bemoaning the fact that in one game the defence/mifield just lumped balls forward to Hanson. What I was aiming for was that even though we had 3 big lads playing for City that Taylor didn’t want ‘worldy balls’ played up to them. I asked Taylor about the phrase which I’d not heard about before and he bemoaned Simon Parker’s match report as he felt he had actually said “World Cup” balls i.e. long passes you normally only seen in the World Cup and not in Legaue Two!
Since 1984, the nine different Bradford City chairmen have employed 15 managers and hundreds of players.The only consistent element since the foundation of The City Gent fanzine has been the loyalty of supporters.
Mike Harrison and many of his contributors bring sanity,humour and comradeship to those of us who have followed City over the decades.
Rather than banning the City Gent from Valley Parade, I suggest the directors read CG165,they might just learn something about the justice system from Paul Firth’s article.
A real PR story would be that supporters could be given a share in the club if they are prepared to lend capital.
I find it almost incomprehensible that the club are taking a stance against a fanzine produced by the fans for the fans.
Mike is a hard working bloke who does a lot for the club as do the extended team around CG, just because they aren’t fanboys who are merely nodding dogs around the club, agreeing with everything that’s said and done doesn’t mean they deserve treatment like this.
Like two school bullies really, threatening the sales of CG in the ground that could have a severe impact on the fanzine’s health is concerning, and then brings into question how careful writers and Mike have to be writing CG? Is the club trying to influence independent fanzines to write only positive material?
I am not supportive of how certain elements of the club operate these days, with bullying and intimidation tactics used against usurpers who dare to challenge anything to do with the club. Mike wasn’t even that negative, like a seasoned pro, he’s reined his prediction in after three years of predicting top 3 finishes no doubt.
No one is calling into question what ML, DB and the chaps have done (indeed I did a thread praising their impact at the club) but occasionally stories like this come out which tar the good work done.
Almost embarassing to be frank.
I’ve been critical of the BfB site in recent weeks in particular the author of this piece but I’m glad that I logged on to have a read, decent piece but almost reminds us of the need to have editorially independent sites and fanzines before the club go all Kim-Jong Il on us.
I have not had time to read all the comments above, which follow the main article as I have a ‘life away’ from Bradford City. However I fully support the right of Mike Harrison to make a subjective comment as to what he believes are the prospects of Bradford City this season. Many of us have supported this club through the good days and the far more numerous bad days. Whatever Mike thinks is his own view, he has to be honest to himself and to the rest of us who are inclined to listen (but not necessarily agree) to his opinion. It is speculation, but based on watching the club for many years. The time and effort he and the City gent team have put into the City Gent and the associated good publicity that this generates is immeasurable. The fact that profits are fed back into the youth team and that the work is ‘pro bono’, speaks volumes. So for the sake of avoidance, if the City Gent is banned, then it may well be the final straw which makes me consider whether to renew my season ticket next season (and there are six of us!). The spontaneity and wit, plus the fierce independence will have gone. Something in a decade of decline has been a positive beacon. Mark my words the club will have gone too far, if it follows the apparent threat through and bans the City Gent. The use of a variety of techniques to stifle open debate, freedom of speech and a constructive critique must not succeed.
Oh, apologies, I thought your cartoon was tongue in cheek as Taylor clearly does, always has, and always will favour the longball, a fact underscored by his signing and subsequent redeployment as a striker, of Luke Oliver.
I honestly thought I was in on the joke for once.
Perhaps supporters could vote with their Paypal accounts (or other plastic cards) and take out a Gent subscription.
http://www.thecitygent.co.uk/subscriptions/index.htm
I’m a subscriber and, hey, it’s the best thing I ever did!
I agree with Mr Lawson whole-heartedly.
Mike, or any City Gent contributors for that matter, should – nay, MUST – be entitled to their full and frank opinion, irregardless of the bureaucracy of the club and its own opinions. This is the very nature of the fanzine. It is not the match day programme or the post game interview, it is a publication which is – in theory and in practise – open to the opinions of any single human being who associates themselves with the club and wishes to make a point outside of the frankly repetitive internet forums.
I have been following this beloved team for the majority of my short life, and like countless others have always relied upon the City Gent for its ‘gallows humour’ and the subjective yet clearly informed opinions of those who I appreciate and believe have only the best interests of The Club at heart.
Of all the dastardly moves a football club could make – especially in this modern climate of supposedly finance orientated, politically desperate club owners and tabloid spin doctors – to ban a publication such as thus would surely have to be a final straw.
It may be a storm in a teacup, but a threat like this, at a club with as passionate a support as this, should be taken seriously. Of course one should retain the right to be a little pessimistic, a pinch of salt anyone?
This is exactly one of the positive things about independent fan forums and fanzines – sensible debate and a willingness to hear different opinions. I particularly appreciate Mike Harrison responding to the often critical comments, mine included, that have been made of what has happened. In response to one of the comments that this is all a storm in a teacup, I believe strongly that it isn’t at all. The potential banning of someone is a serious issue whoever it is, and more so in my opinion when it’s someone who, as Michael pointed out in one of his comments above, has contributed a lot of very postive things over recent years.
Many will remember the war of words I had with Geoffrey Richmond when I was editor of CG regarding the payments of dividends. There was a robust exchange of views to say the least, but there was never a serious move to ban CG from VP – despite many promptings from Geoffrey’s supporters. I asked Shaun Harvey why we had not been banned and he said Geoffrey realised that a ban would be a propaganda victory for CG; would attract huge publicity; and would probably increase sales of CG!
The current row has already been described, rightly, as a storm in a tea cup. If I was the chairman of the club I would have laughed it off, or asked Mike to come in and explain what he meant, or, more likely, ignored the comment and got on with the job of dragging Braford City AFC back up the divisions.
Dave
The joint chairman did intimate via David Baldwin that I would be invited to ‘discuss my issues’ regarding my YP comments at a non specified date in the near future. I’m a very busy man and I’ve pre-empted this request by sending a letter to every member of the club’s board ending it hoping that the matter will now be drawn to a close. I added that they have far more important things to do at present rather wasting time chatting to me i.e. finding a way for Peter Taylor to help him produce a winning side on the pitch for one.
I’ll be publishing the letter in CG166 and just this morning I have received a reply to my letter from Alan Biggin, the club’s company secretary, which I’l also use in the next issue of The City Gent.