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Post by ambersalamander on Mar 28, 2012 12:17:36 GMT
Hi Ben, nice to see a new member on board You've had trouble brewing for years, haven't you? How far have the fans been able to get in implementing changes for themselves, or haven't you been able to do anything yet? Another horrible situation.
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ben
In the tea-bar queue
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Post by ben on Mar 28, 2012 14:32:46 GMT
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Post by Sultan of Cannock- SRFC on Mar 28, 2012 14:49:50 GMT
Can't help feeling the same as you Frankie in reference to the situation at Northwich. We have no ground, are playing in venues miles away from the town and have no money or future as the current club. I sometimes wonder why I bother travelling to Macclesfield and Nantwich for nothing, but I do it to get behind the lads and because I love watching football and meeting up with my mates. It's a shame that there is a split amongst our fanbase. Some fans just can not see fault with Jim Rushe, while most on our forum can't stand the man. They are viewed dimly by Jim Rushe. We are made to feel like we are not proper fans, even though a lot of us have stuck by the club thick and thin for years. We just want change and a club ran by our supporters. Hi Ben and welcome to TT. Speaking as a Stafford Rangers fan, Northwich is certainly a controversial topic. My team has drifted down and down over the last few years, mainly due to ongoing financial constraints and one big emergency when the supporters had to rally round to urgently find money to pay off the temporary stand company once our sojourn into Conference National was over. . We have been in a situation for some time now where only 2 or 3 players can be offered contracts by SRFC at any one time. Consequently, we have drifted down two divisions. The modern non-league footballer wants more than 2 pints of lager and a packet of crisps and if you can only pay rumage sale prices then you guess what you get. Yet NVFC, whom we have heard about during the same time period, going from bankruptcy to administration and lord knows what and back on a regular basis have seemingly been going around throwing around money they haven't got this season. Two of our non-contracts were tempted away by the Vics this season. Many of us at SRFC shook our heads and wondered how they could sustain this and sure enough within weeks the shrouds are being waved again. For many of us, "Wolf!" has been cried so often by various people linked with NVFC that it's become more of an annoyance than the sympathy and solidarity, that, by rights, we should feel with decent NVFC fans such as you. Having 2 players in good form taken from us in November disrupted a squad that was just starting to get a few results together and blew us off course for a while. Not to mention the prospect of the 4pts we took off you being deducted by the NPL if you don't complete the season helping to push us back towards the relegation zone. Mr Rushe, apperaring on the BBC Non-League Show, meanwhile, came over as a knight in shining armour, all lovable and misunderstood while the factory owners, who want to legitimately want to expand their business, and the landowners were painted on BBC London and all over the World Wide Wait as greedy grasping capitalists bent on putting a plucky little club out of business. Seeing the cries of horror that went up on the Witton Albion board at the prospect of having you ground share with them again did make me wonder how much NVFC deserve to be saved. I can only hope that the complaints made about arrogant NVFC fans was limited to a rock-headed few totally unrepresentative of decent, majority, footy loving Vics fans. For whatever reason, you are forced into a nomadic existence because you cannot share with the neighbours again. For the rest of us, it was roll-eyes time. "Oh well, there go Northwich again. Rushe will bumble his way out of trouble. Then they'll be back again splashing money they haven't got to take players off those of us who are trying to pay our debts the conventional way all over again. Then they'll go bust again and it will all be someone else's fault." Hopefully it will be the "decent" tendency that you appear to represent that will win out in the end. Good luck in your struggle.
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Post by Meadow on Mar 29, 2012 12:33:47 GMT
It's a shame that there is a split amongst our fanbase. Some fans just can not see fault with Jim Rushe, while most on our forum can't stand the man. They are viewed dimly by Jim Rushe. We are made to feel like we are not proper fans, even though a lot of us have stuck by the club thick and thin for years. We just want change and a club ran by our supporters. Hi Ben Running a 'Fans' club is not easy. Yes I know the likes of us, Telford and Chester have done it but it's bloody hard work. You have to have the support and goodwill otherwise it probably won't get off the ground. I can only speak of our experience, but we had the momentum and ran with it when the MK decision was made. We had a potential 2500 hardcore support who were willing not only to buy season tickets but also to put time and extra money into the club. Supporters from other clubs joined the Trust initially to help get us off the ground. We are lucky in that we have at least three millionaires amongst our support who have sponsored the seats/ground and have stumped up the odd 25k for new players. In the early days all our staff were volunteers. Our original CEO and club secretary lived on redundancy payments from previous jobs for a fair old time. It wasn't uncommon for me to get a phone one day asking me to help with a mail-out the following day. Our current CEO is a retired accountant who has a very good pension and so he takes a token sum a guinea a year. Even today at least three quarters of the matchday staff are volunteers and mass mailouts are done by volunteers. I would say that in general, phoenix clubs are viewed in a better light than protest clubs who are extremely unpopular in non league circles. We (I think) are viewed as a hybrid and are generally accepted. If you start a new club, get Supporters Direct on board. They've helped quite a few new clubs in starting up. Get in contact with other supporter owned clubs and ask advice. Good luck.
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ben
In the tea-bar queue
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Post by ben on Mar 29, 2012 14:34:49 GMT
Hi Meadow,
A 'fans' club is not going to be easy to run, it will require a lot of patience, dedication and hard work from fans interested. I acknowledge that we're not a club of the size of Wimbledon, Chester, FC United and Telford, but it can still be done.
Runcorn Linnets are a small club with fans who had little knowledge of how to run a football club and now after one promotion already, are a North West Counties League side playing in their own ground (through funds that fans made) and regularly attracting crowds of 300-400, which at that level is admittedly superb.
Yes the Trust have come across Supporter's Direct. I guess you know Jacqui Smith then, she came into a fans meeting a couple of weeks ago to discuss the idea of Community Share. This as I'm sure you know is when fans put shares into the club, in order to fund a ground that would be of asset to the local community. For instance, the local scouts could meet up there.
I for one was impressed with the idea and thought it could be done with the efforts of a few hundred fans. A ground at North West Counties level would not be that difficult to sustain either. That is the biggest problem facing us in my opinion. Jacqui also talked about volunteers being part of the club, so stewards would not get paid for instance. It would be great to hear some dialogue from fans like you on the idea. Thanks for your comments and well wishes.
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ben
In the tea-bar queue
Posts: 4
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Post by ben on Mar 29, 2012 14:45:54 GMT
Hi Sultan of Cannock - SRFC Thanks for your kind comments and well wishes. Stafford are a similar club to Northwich in a lot of ways, in the way they have followed Northwich down the leagues to end up in the Evo-Stik League and gone through the same financial turbulence. Crucially, the key difference is Stafford decided to live within their means and not 'go for the prize' by being supposedly 'ambitious' and spending money on players they could not afford. That is everything Jim Rushe has done I'm afraid and previous owners, we have always been ran badly and this time is a step too far. It must be annoying for other sets of supporter's when we just seem to keep getting out of difficult situations and carrying on regardless. All of Jim Rushe and his gang like to paint themselves as the victims in all of this, they blame anyone but themselves. They blame the Supporter's Trust for not backing them. They even spread their own propoganda on Granada reports or the radio programmes you are on about. Jim goes around making enemies with everyone, he has fell out with all the local businesses, attracted no sponsors and even wound up our neighbours and Thor to the extent that they don't want to associate themselves with him. I just hope that we can get this phoenix club started, a club that would be of asset to the local community, work with local businesses and a club that would play their football in Northwich. If that involves talking to Thor and getting them to donate the Danebank stand and floodlights, provide sponsorship for us - then so be it. Maybe even Witton would be prepared to help us without the influence of Jim Rushe. I wish Stafford the best for the rest of the season, a friendly club with proper fans.
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Post by Sultan of Cannock- SRFC on Apr 14, 2012 2:16:08 GMT
First i was astonished to find that Rushe's NVFV had approached Stafford Rangers for a groundshare agreement and now this, posted on the SRFC message board:
NORTHWICH VICTORIA
Following a hearing on Friday 13th April 2012 Northwich Victoria Football Club have been found guilty of failing to comply with League Rules 2.9.2, 2.9.3 and 14 b 4 relating to financial matters.
The membership of the Northern Premier League has been terminated with effect from the end of the current playing season and the club will not be allowed to participate in this seasons promotion play-offs.
The League or its officers will not be making any further comments until such time as the appeal process has been exhausted. A statement will be made in due course relative to the qualifying teams and dates of the Premier Division Promotion Play Offs [and possibly First North] which will be impacted by this decision.
Not just dropped a division but completely out on their ear?
Also heard a rumour that Darlington may be kicked out of the Conference altogether. Another interesting AGM Cup looks on the cards again.
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Post by ambersalamander on Apr 14, 2012 17:10:35 GMT
Well, they've been relegated now too (Darlington that is).
Blimey. So where will Northwich go now?
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