PVFC Meet delegation of fans regarding current concerns

[werstayinup]

The main problem with fans it seems is DF's involvement in the squad and recruitment,as i said the other day it seems like Carol is determined to keep him as DOF and if thats the case then come out and say he is still DOF but player recruitment will be solely down to DM and his team.

[werstayinup]

5 hours ago, Bede said:

Happy to prove you wrong Paul.

Black & Gold have continued to exist since its inception back in about 2008/9, in the background, to gauge fans' feelings and I suppose judge the performance of the club.  We have an excellent source of research to delve deeper into things.

Mark Porter is the chair of the SC and, until recently, the meetings were held on the final Thursday of each month.  However, we have just changed that to bi-monthly to allow us to have more regular committee meetings to allow us to operate better.  Sadly, our website got hacked and damaged so we are struggling for an official means of communications whilst our new one is currently being built.  (I'm the SC secretary by the way)

Tell you why we represent you?  We listen at meetings and we listen to fans in the stands, in the pubs, on social media and on forums such as this.  We represent you by collectively discussing what we can do within our powers as supporter groups.  That has led to lots of very frank dialogue with the club over the past couple of months, resulting in this meeting to hit it all face on with the people at the top.

Yes, this meeting was face to face.  No, we have not been pacified and nobody, not a single person, has changed their views on David Flitcroft or the disconnect between fans and club.  I'm absolutely astounded at the bizarre criticisms that we've 'had our bellies tickled' and other such nonsense.  As a result of our initial meeting, the club now fully understand the deep-rooted issues the fans have. It is the first step in a long road ahead.

There will, of course, be further communication back to the fans, no doubt from both sides, but we also have to be pragmatic and sensible.  We will do nothing knee-jerk.

The fans have had faith in those groups to act for the betterment of the club in the past.  We ask for the same again.

I am quite happy to know that and i trust you Bede me owd fruit to have stated what the majority think of DF and him being involved in the recruitment side etc of the club and how that's affecting the fan base massively.

Hopefully we will be hearing soon enough that he has taken a backward step regarding that issue....... we will wait and see

[TJHValiant]

47 minutes ago, Brian Johnson said:

he's completed wasted the budget especially on the striker front.

The wages that he's agreed to pay Loft, Uche and Wilson per week could have easily been divided into bringing in 2 x quality strikers.

We needed more than 2x quality strikers anyway. The budget did need to be bigger. Loft is the big waste. Uche was basically the only option left as the window had shut and Wilson is only at the club because nobody else wanted him and he accepted less than the deal offered. 
 

We needed Harrison regardless of the others brought in but he was let go to fund Loft. Who isn’t that, by the standards of the league, not on much. His wages are those of a back up bench warmer at most clubs, which is all he is at this level. 

[onestepatatime]

Many thanks Bede for your detailed post. I, initially, like many others were left a little bewildered at the original statement put out by the  Club. I now know much more and am satisfied that at long last a commencement of reasonable debate and discussion has been set up. If only your eloquent post had been seen BEFORE the Club' s rather scant statement, I suggest most of the concern and disbelief could have been avoided. I applaud yours and the others involved attempts to voice Valiant fans opinions.  Time will tell but hopefully now you have gone to print the majority of us can at least accept the door is open to eventually appease our concerns.

 

 

[Vale till I die]

23 hours ago, pvfc1994 said:

A joint statement that didn't really say anything at all. All talk and no action or solutions. Why not release a transcript of the meeting? Why not organise an open fans forum? It's all well and good saying the club was 'open and honest' and then not providing anything to back it up. Carol's open letter told me everything I need to know about what they think of fans and their opinions. Why wasn't Flitcroft there if his role was the significant part of the meeting? Must be scared of being called out without scripted questions and club edited podcasts. 

I'm sick of hearing 'biggest game of the season','must win', 'back the lads' and 'we will improve' and then the fans doing their best to get behind the team and then ultimately getting beaten comfortably every single game. I actually think the fans have been quite patient with how things are being handled by the club. We are abysmal on the pitch and all of this was avoidable, the past 18 months have been a car crash. They've been living under a rock and hiding for months. 

 

[Mellor!]

I've not really said anything so far but keep seeing the recurrence of people "having their belly tickled" "smoke blown up their arse" "not asking the hard questions that fans want asking".

Bede, Dicko, Tony and myself were there as part of B&G. If you think we are the type of people that would have our bellies tickled and not ask the hard questions, then I'm not sure how to change your mind, epecially people like Spunkers who have seen us on multiple protests, meetings, etc... Collectively we have got rid of two lots of disgraceful owners, yet went into the meeting to offer an olive branch to the club to try and resolve current tensions. This is because the Shanahan's, in my opinion, truly have the best wishes of the club at heart and it is not them that is the problem. We want to work with them to try and sort this current discontent and anger out. Of course the main topic was the director of football. But do you think you can really go in and tell Carol to get rid and walk out? The meeting would be over in an instant. The club now realise how deep rooted this is and they have to try and alleviate the tension. How they do that is up to them. We know what we want to happen, but Carol owns the club and we can't hold her by gun point, but we can try and make her realise the massive feeling of discontent.

What the club do now is their decision. We have started the conversation. They know how the fans feel, trust us.  Now while the club decide the next steps, the only thing we can do is get behind the team wholeheartedly on Saturday, like we have all season and try and retain our League 1 status.

[Vale1995]

1 hour ago, Bede said:

I wrote the following account yesterday but decided to sleep on it before posting.  I feel I must now clarify, given the responses since the release of the official statement.

OK, so to first explain how this has come about.  I am the co-founder of the Black & Gold Group, but also current sitting Secretary of the Supporters' Club.  The SC, B&G and NLV have all been interwoven for many years, simply because we are all Vale fans with the same ultimate aims.  We all offer differing viewpoints on things but remain active together to provide a widespread view on situations. B&G have remained active, albeit in the background, for many years, mainly as observers and researchers.  With my SC hat on, we have been increasingly frustrated with everything at the club, same as everyone else.  We therefore requested a committee meeting a couple of months or so ago with the inclusion of Matt Hancock, who has offered himself up to the SC as the conduit between us and the club.  The relationship between SC and club has drifted apart as we feel that the club have not wanted to engage with us, and it seems that they have hijacked events that the SC have traditionally held, on behalf of the fans.  We all feel that the club are trying to control everything.  This meeting was intense.  I'm not slow at coming forward with my views, and neither is Paul Dixon, and Matt got absolute pelters.  To his credit, he took it all very well.  Never argued, never complained, never flounced off or made excuses.  He took it all in.

Following that meeting, Mark Porter, Paul Dixon, and I have remained in constant contact with Matt, intensely pointing out the level of unrest amongst the fanbase.  He could quite easily cease communications with me because I have hardly been complimentary at times, but I have tried to reflect the level of anger, frustration, disappointment, and downright disengagement from the club.  Matt has actively sought to understand all of that.  We then held another meeting with Matt to delve a little deeper into the supporter discontent.  This then led to Matt setting up a meeting with Carol for him relay the mounting concerns to her, with her full attention.  It was then mutually agreed that a meeting should be held between us to face this head on.  During this period, other fans have also been voicing their concerns in their own ways to the club, so we therefore asked them to join in a collaborative effort.

Matt then gave us a list of dates that Carol would be available, and the meeting was set.  At no point were we given a time limit, a limit on numbers of members that could attend, or any actual pre-requisites at all.  All that was asked towards the date looming was a list of names of those attending.  The meeting was initially going to be between us and just Matt Hancock and Carol.  A couple of us then debated the merits of also requesting the attendance of Paddy.  We decided against it, but then as the meeting approached, we were told that Carol would like him to attend.  We ran it by our groups, and it was agreed that he should attend.

So, on Monday evening, we held a meeting between 7pm until just gone 10pm.  The burning topic, of course, was David Flitcroft.  My view remains that I cannot see his position anything other than untenable.  A sentiment held by all of us on our side of the table.  Let's not dress that up any other way. The overwhelming evidence of fans in the ground, fans in the pubs, fans on social media, forums such as this and radio phone-ins, is that very few have remaining faith in our Director of Football.  You must understand that, had we sat down and screamed that Flitcroft is a w***** and he needs to f*** off, a 3-hour meeting would not have lasted 3 minutes.  And we would also be doing a dis-service to the other points that needed addressing.

We went into the meeting well researched, with a formal agenda from which to raise our points.  After lots and lots of debate around the obvious, we then discussed the other topics; those being the communications coming out of the club, the problems with ticketing, the matchday supporter facilities and overall 'experience' and the potential for better fan engagement with the club going forward.  The club seemed surprised at some of the issues raised.  They did admit failings in communication, they also saw a different viewpoint on the other topics that they had not considered.  Above all else, they appeared genuinely shocked and saddened at what we were telling them, in terms of the overall disconnect between fans and club.

Now, we all know that admitting failure, and expressing shock and sadness at things is all well and good, but they need to let their actions do the talking.  We hope that they now understand that loud and clear.  It's over to them to deliver results.

So please let me make it abundantly clear.  We recognise that fans are not happy.  This season, we have seen fans fighting amongst themselves in the stands.  We have seen much anger directed at Flitcroft, at our players for abject performances.  We have seen growing complaints against the disparity of ground improvements.  We have an utterly unworkable relationship between the Supporters' Club and the club.  We have seen an alarming lack of respect shown to us fans by the club, not least by way of Carol's letter, David Flitcroft's Podcast, and the ignorance displayed towards our concerns at the last fans' forum.

We are taking those issues to the club because they all need to be fixed.  Do not think for one moment that we are easily pacified.  But we must be logical.  We cannot just rock up with a list of demands.  There will have to be compromise and understanding from both sides.  The first step in that healing process is to meet and hit the problems head on.  Monday's meeting was exactly that.  We don't have any answers, or results to report back on, from one solitary, intense meeting.  But it is the start of some much needed honest and frank dialogue.  How this pans out is yet to be decided. 

We've been in much worse states.  We have battled to remove two rogue owners in the last 13 or so years.  These owners are not rogue.  But it's fair to say they have misaligned their focus.  Please support us in regaining that.  And please understand our respect for the Shanahan family, despite all our current differences.

We've hopefully now opened doors and we look forward to the club holding much more open dialogue with the wider fanbase.

Brill mate thats all the information i need. Thanks for clearing everything up and explaining. I think thats all fans wanted . I dont need to know what was said but i feel much more in the loop after reading that.

[Danish Valiant]

22 minutes ago, Mellor! said:

I've not really said anything so far but keep seeing the recurrence of people "having their belly tickled" "smoke blown up their arse" "not asking the hard questions that fans want asking".

Bede, Dicko, Tony and myself were there as part of B&G. If you think we are the type of people that would have our bellies tickled and not ask the hard questions, then I'm not sure how to change your mind, epecially people like Spunkers who have seen us on multiple protests, meetings, etc... Collectively we have got rid of two lots of disgraceful owners, yet went into the meeting to offer an olive branch to the club to try and resolve current tensions. This is because the Shanahan's, in my opinion, truly have the best wishes of the club at heart and it is not them that is the problem. We want to work with them to try and sort this current discontent and anger out. Of course the main topic was the director of football. But do you think you can really go in and tell Carol to get rid and walk out? The meeting would be over in an instant. The club now realise how deep rooted this is and they have to try and alleviate the tension. How they do that is up to them. We know what we want to happen, but Carol owns the club and we can't hold her by gun point, but we can try and make her realise the massive feeling of discontent.

What the club do now is their decision. We have started the conversation. They know how the fans feel, trust us.  Now while the club decide the next steps, the only thing we can do is get behind the team wholeheartedly on Saturday, like we have all season and try and retain our League 1 status.

Thank you, THIS is what the statement should have said and what other attendees should have replied.

Edited March 7 by Danish Valiant

[Nippy Naylor]

2 hours ago, ValeForever. said:

Just need to vent slightly here, apologies. Just to be very clear, I'm not a huge lover of DF. I understand ppl think he talks waffle & is pulling the wool over Carol's eyes. I understand he's not a particularly 'likeable' guy. He was always on a hiding to nothing when a club legend & fans fave came out & blitzed him publicly upon his arrival. That planted the seed. It went very very quiet though when we instantly got promoted, didn't it.

This for me is yet another clear statement from the club. Well done for getting together with the main supporters groups.

I'm confident that Porter & Dicko et al got their points of view across. Ultimately it's Carol's decision on how to manage poor performance of the football side of things (Flitcroft). If she believes in him, then ultimately we have to respect that view & get on with it. 

I'm not sure what some supporters genuinely expect sometimes. We're not the Dog & Duck. We're a professional football club playing in the 3rd tier of English football (for now). The club shouldn't have to give minute by minute accounts of the goings on behind the scenes. I personally hold the view that a lot of the anger & abuse towards the club & DF is unwarranted. 

DF answered questions recently including covering the January transfer window. That's a fact. If some fans weren't happy with what they heard then that's unfortunate, but ultimately the bloke explained some of the reasons why we didn't do what we should have done. There's been forums (I'm sure there will be another in the summer). Carol has done podcasts, statements. No matter how many times the club engage, or how they engage, it doesn't change anything, because ultimately ppl aren't getting what they're craving, which is DFs head on a plate.

You've got to trust in Carol to make these key decisions. She certainly doesn't help herself at times from a PR perspective but I 100% believe she wants what's best for this football club. If she feels that's to give DF more time to rectify some of his very poor performance, then so be it. If we're honest, he's probably earned more time based on his performance over his full time at the club. He's made massive mistakes, but he's also done some good along the way. & even if Carol did get rid, she's just going to bring another DOF in who some people won't like & will want rid of at the first sign of poor performance. 

We're having a terrible season. Lots of mistakes have been made. Ppl at the club will be dissapointed with their own performances, DF included. As a fan base we really do need to come together & do everything we can to give us a sniff at staying up. It might not be enough, but we're Vale fans aren't we. We have to try.

I genuinely believe in my heart of hearts that good times are ahead of us. Even if we go down this season, I do believe important lessons will have been learned & we will come back stronger. We're all Vale aren't we... let's back them & show some faith. I'm really hopeful of better times ahead. UTV.

 

How can the good times be ahead of us if we get relegated which looks more than likely at the moment and I can't see the most important lesson being learnt yet as Fraudcroft is still stealing a wage at the club , anyway KTF UTV 

Edited March 7 by Nippy Naylor

[Vale Ball]

Seriously - well done for organising and then taking this absolutely unwarranted heat from lads who need to touch grass. It genuinely makes you question why on Earth you bother. 
Hopefully the first step in a long road to something more positive. 

I imagine Carol must start to think why she bothers as well.



Sent from my SM-A217F using onevalefan mobile app

[Nippy Naylor]

2 hours ago, lemus the great said:

Not being funny like but all the blame can't be laid at flickers door over the lack off strikers signed he has to work within the budget an the club needs to realize strikers come at a premium an won't come for 250 quid a week an half a dozen oatcakes 

It's not just Loft though is it ,there are other players signed by Fraudcroft who have been p### poor , the majority of the blame does lie at his door unfortunately because he is responsible for player recruitment at the club

Edited March 7 by Nippy Naylor

[Nippy Naylor]

2 hours ago, Bede said:

I wrote the following account yesterday but decided to sleep on it before posting.  I feel I must now clarify, given the responses since the release of the official statement.

OK, so to first explain how this has come about.  I am the co-founder of the Black & Gold Group, but also current sitting Secretary of the Supporters' Club.  The SC, B&G and NLV have all been interwoven for many years, simply because we are all Vale fans with the same ultimate aims.  We all offer differing viewpoints on things but remain active together to provide a widespread view on situations. B&G have remained active, albeit in the background, for many years, mainly as observers and researchers.  With my SC hat on, we have been increasingly frustrated with everything at the club, same as everyone else.  We therefore requested a committee meeting a couple of months or so ago with the inclusion of Matt Hancock, who has offered himself up to the SC as the conduit between us and the club.  The relationship between SC and club has drifted apart as we feel that the club have not wanted to engage with us, and it seems that they have hijacked events that the SC have traditionally held, on behalf of the fans.  We all feel that the club are trying to control everything.  This meeting was intense.  I'm not slow at coming forward with my views, and neither is Paul Dixon, and Matt got absolute pelters.  To his credit, he took it all very well.  Never argued, never complained, never flounced off or made excuses.  He took it all in.

Following that meeting, Mark Porter, Paul Dixon, and I have remained in constant contact with Matt, intensely pointing out the level of unrest amongst the fanbase.  He could quite easily cease communications with me because I have hardly been complimentary at times, but I have tried to reflect the level of anger, frustration, disappointment, and downright disengagement from the club.  Matt has actively sought to understand all of that.  We then held another meeting with Matt to delve a little deeper into the supporter discontent.  This then led to Matt setting up a meeting with Carol for him relay the mounting concerns to her, with her full attention.  It was then mutually agreed that a meeting should be held between us to face this head on.  During this period, other fans have also been voicing their concerns in their own ways to the club, so we therefore asked them to join in a collaborative effort.

Matt then gave us a list of dates that Carol would be available, and the meeting was set.  At no point were we given a time limit, a limit on numbers of members that could attend, or any actual pre-requisites at all.  All that was asked towards the date looming was a list of names of those attending.  The meeting was initially going to be between us and just Matt Hancock and Carol.  A couple of us then debated the merits of also requesting the attendance of Paddy.  We decided against it, but then as the meeting approached, we were told that Carol would like him to attend.  We ran it by our groups, and it was agreed that he should attend.

So, on Monday evening, we held a meeting between 7pm until just gone 10pm.  The burning topic, of course, was David Flitcroft.  My view remains that I cannot see his position anything other than untenable.  A sentiment held by all of us on our side of the table.  Let's not dress that up any other way. The overwhelming evidence of fans in the ground, fans in the pubs, fans on social media, forums such as this and radio phone-ins, is that very few have remaining faith in our Director of Football.  You must understand that, had we sat down and screamed that Flitcroft is a w***** and he needs to f*** off, a 3-hour meeting would not have lasted 3 minutes.  And we would also be doing a dis-service to the other points that needed addressing.

We went into the meeting well researched, with a formal agenda from which to raise our points.  After lots and lots of debate around the obvious, we then discussed the other topics; those being the communications coming out of the club, the problems with ticketing, the matchday supporter facilities and overall 'experience' and the potential for better fan engagement with the club going forward.  The club seemed surprised at some of the issues raised.  They did admit failings in communication, they also saw a different viewpoint on the other topics that they had not considered.  Above all else, they appeared genuinely shocked and saddened at what we were telling them, in terms of the overall disconnect between fans and club.

Now, we all know that admitting failure, and expressing shock and sadness at things is all well and good, but they need to let their actions do the talking.  We hope that they now understand that loud and clear.  It's over to them to deliver results.

So please let me make it abundantly clear.  We recognise that fans are not happy.  This season, we have seen fans fighting amongst themselves in the stands.  We have seen much anger directed at Flitcroft, at our players for abject performances.  We have seen growing complaints against the disparity of ground improvements.  We have an utterly unworkable relationship between the Supporters' Club and the club.  We have seen an alarming lack of respect shown to us fans by the club, not least by way of Carol's letter, David Flitcroft's Podcast, and the ignorance displayed towards our concerns at the last fans' forum.

We are taking those issues to the club because they all need to be fixed.  Do not think for one moment that we are easily pacified.  But we must be logical.  We cannot just rock up with a list of demands.  There will have to be compromise and understanding from both sides.  The first step in that healing process is to meet and hit the problems head on.  Monday's meeting was exactly that.  We don't have any answers, or results to report back on, from one solitary, intense meeting.  But it is the start of some much needed honest and frank dialogue.  How this pans out is yet to be decided. 

We've been in much worse states.  We have battled to remove two rogue owners in the last 13 or so years.  These owners are not rogue.  But it's fair to say they have misaligned their focus.  Please support us in regaining that.  And please understand our respect for the Shanahan family, despite all our current differences.

We've hopefully now opened doors and we look forward to the club holding much more open dialogue with the wider fanbase.

Thanks for the update , mate 

And Thanks for relaying our concerns to the club regarding certain issues 

#  All of you Keep up the good work 👍 UTV

[darren1810]

15 minutes ago, Nippy Naylor said:

How can the good times be ahead of us if we get relegated which looks more than likely at the moment and I can't see the most important lesson being learnt yet as Fraudcroft is still stealing a wage at the club , anyway KTF UTV 

My issue with the good times are ahead of us quotes we see ,is that was what Mansfield 0 Port Vale 3 was all about. Not 2 years of regression. 

Let's be under no illusion League 2 is a bugger to get out of. It's horrible. 

You can't wave a magic wand. Ask Bradford. 

[Brian Johnson]

1 hour ago, TJHValiant said:

We needed more than 2x quality strikers anyway. The budget did need to be bigger. Loft is the big waste. Uche was basically the only option left as the window had shut and Wilson is only at the club because nobody else wanted him and he accepted less than the deal offered. 
 

We needed Harrison regardless of the others brought in but he was let go to fund Loft. Who isn’t that, by the standards of the league, not on much. His wages are those of a back up bench warmer at most clubs, which is all he is at this level. 

We have mainly played with one striker. 

2 x quality strikers plus a Josh Thomas type player we would have been in a much better place

Harrison did not want to be here and he played like he did not want to be here. He downed tools. It was pointless having him here at that point. The problem was replacing him with the wrong striker

[ValeForever.]

22 minutes ago, Nippy Naylor said:

How can the good times be ahead of us if we get relegated which looks more than likely at the moment and I can't see the most important lesson being learnt yet as Fraudcroft is still stealing a wage at the club , anyway KTF UTV 

Because our entire future as a football club is not solely dependent on us being relegated this season, that's how.