Dialogue With Fans — A Display of Tactical Naivety

The recent Chelsea Pitch Owners EGM revealed a lot of things, but to me as a SaynoCPO activist, one of the most interesting was the complete lack of engagement that the club have with large elements of their fan-base. The massive PR own-goal of failing to get the necessary 75% of votes cast could surely have been avoided if there was a better dialogue with fans, and hence a better understanding of their concerns.

Despite dismissive remarks made at the EGM by club representatives, I think it is fair to say that most CPO shareholders are Chelsea fans, even if money or force of circumstance means they cannot attend as often as they would wish. It defeats me as to why the club did not attempt proper dialogue before the campaign started, to test the water and understand potential concerns. Further, once it had clearly found organised, motivated and pro-active opposition, why did it not reach out to more than just major shareholders, who were invited to meetings with Bruce Buck and John Terry?

I suspect that the Executive Club, and corporate supporters, have far more access to senior club management, and hence their views are more likely to be taken into account, views that are unlikely to reflect mass fan opinion. This would be fine if other elements of the fan base had similar access, but clearly they do not. I know free-for-all mass open meetings aren’t necessarily the answer, but there must be a better way of understanding the concerns and views of fans who actually attend games than at present.

The Fans Forum, at their September meeting with club management, were not even advised that the club were intending to make a proposal to CPO shareholders in the next few weeks, so one of the few sounding boards Chelsea have with fans wasn’t used to test out arguably most important and wide-reaching club initiative ever. To me, this shows the lack of importance the club place in the Forum’s opinions and displays a misplaced belief that they don’t need to understand supporters concerns on important matters.

The Fans Forum represent a number of groups (both formal and informal), but by having so many factions/voices the club can to a certain extent play ‘divide and rule’. I’m certainly not criticising the intentions and efforts of Forum members, a number of whom I know, and the volume of work some Forum members do should not be under-estimated. I’m not sure, however, how such a group, meeting four times a year and drawn from diverse groups (or chosen to represent sections of fans) can be fully effective. SaynoCPO worked because we had a short-term common cause and whatever other issues people had were parked as there were more urgent matters to address. Longer term pan-issue rapport is always likely to be more difficult, especially as the forum meets so infrequently.

To me, the most enjoyable and rewarding aspect of the whole CPO campaign was talking to fans while leafleting at Mark Worrall’s book stall on Fulham Road for 4-5 hours before the Everton league game. I spoke to several dozen fans I’d not met before, many of whom had the same points of reference as me (started going in the 1960’s, regular since the 1970’s, were there when we were sh*t 79-83, uncomfortable with the rampant commercialism of the modern game but totally appreciative of what RA has done for the club). What may dismissively (or affectionately, depending on your viewpoint) be called ‘Old School’. Men and women who have been going to Chelsea for years, unless priced out. Not friendship scarf wearers, not fair-weather spectators who leave ten minutes early to avoid the rush, and (as should now be clear) not for the club to take for granted.

Well, the ‘Old School’ deserve the thanks of everyone with Chelsea’s true interests at heart for the way that those with CPO shares voted to reject the clubs proposal. The club clearly missed a massive trick. They had no idea what this large group of shareholders in their 40’s, 50’s and 60’s thought and got a bloody nose as a result. It amazes me that the club have never tried to reach out to hardcore fans in anything more than the annual fans survey. If they did they would learn a lot. Not all of them agreed with what SaynoCPO were saying (though I think most probably did) but they were passionate in their support for the club and clearly deserve a voice. Focus groups are much derided in politics, but if the club got facilitated groups of 20-30 ST holders / members at a time in a room, they would quickly get a feel for the deeply felt concerns of people who definitely have the clubs long-term interests at heart.

Club executives may dismissively talk about Chelsea having the oldest fans in the PL, but as John King eloquently put it in a recent edition of CFCUK, whose fault is that? I met Bruce Buck twice during the CPO campaign, and found him civil and engaged, and I’m sure if he and Ron Gourlay met die-hard fans more often they would have a far better feel for issues and concerns across the fan base.

The explosion in social media has certainly brought fans together (and was a key factor in the core SaynoCPO team coming together so quickly after the announcement of the clubs intentions) but it isn’t clear that the clubs strategy has adapted accordingly. I’m sure representatives from the club keep an eye on Twitter and Facebook but there seems little attempt at dialogue. Club tweets (outside match updates/reports which fill a valuable role) are often pretty banal, and presumably aimed at their much vaunted ‘global fan base’, but most just leave this long-term fan completely cold. It is fair to say that the core SaynoCPO campaigners are all on Twitter and their use of the medium was far ahead of that of the club, whose occasional pathetic ‘another ex-player comes out for the yes campaign’ was almost beyond parody by the end. I am not a Facebook user but I understand the situation is often the same there – the clubs use of social media slow and ineffective.

In any other business, the 1000 or so Away Season Ticket Holders would be nurtured by the club as key customers, not roundly ignored. Another group that clearly feel disenfranchised are younger supporters. I know a fair number of die-hard home-and-away fans in their 20’s who have no dialogue with the club whatsoever, and I know most of them feel totally disenfranchised and disconnected as a result. These people are the future and, all being well, will still be watching Chelsea in 40 years time so it is perverse that the club makes no effort to discover their concerns, priorities, likes/dislikes etc..

I’m not sure at what point a fan went from being someone who went to matches to also being one who buys merchandise and watches games on TV, often in a different time zone, but I am sure Mr Gourlay (who must rival Prince Andrew for air miles) could tell me. I am obviously not knocking those who follow Chelsea from afar, and can understand Chelsea’s need to optimise review from overseas activity, but I would personally distinguish between those who pay good money to watch the team regularly, or would if they could afford it, and those that realistically cannot ever do so.

If the same effort was put into constructive dialogue with those who regularly go to games, as there is in nurturing more support in the Far East, the club would surely be less likely to be out-thought and out-manoeuvred by an ad-hoc group of single-issue activists. As Ron Gourlay said in an interview after the CPO meeting, maybe they got their tactics wrong. You know, Ron, I think you’ve got something there, but if you don’t make the effort to talk to people, how do you know what they think?

During the CPO campaign, a number of people mentioned to me the need for an effective single voice for Chelsea fans, and a few pushed the idea of a Chelsea Trust. I would certainly support a single-voice for fans, recognised by, but independent of, the club which could build on the work the Fans Forum does but has an ongoing dialogue with both fans and club management. It would be fair to say that others, including some current Fans Forum members, do not think a single group would work, or feel that the current structure is as good as it is likely to get.

The idea of a Trust is an interesting one, but of course any ‘single voice’ would only be of real value if the club would recognise it, and they may well prefer the current imperfect structure as they may think it causes them less hassle. In the past few months I have met so many passionate, articulate, opinionated Chelsea fans and it is a real shame that most of them have no engagement with the club they spend so much time, effort and money supporting.

The problem is, change cannot realistically be imposed on the club, they have to want to improve dialogue with fans. Interestingly, I see from the latest Fans Forum Report in the new CFCUK that Ron Gourlay is considering changes to the Forum structure. It will be fascinating to see what the club propose, what their rationale is, and whether they now realise that a significant improvement in their dialogue with fans is desirable, both inside and outside whatever formal structure exists going forward.