Quote: jack in the box "So to all you sulkers, take a deep breath, shrug it off and rise above it. Its great watching the team at the moment.'"
Now, that is a fair point.
The point I was trying to make is that there is certainly a perception that the fans are being treated as part of the problem, not the solution; hence my analogy with Ryanair. When the chairman's Twitter feed has a Bill Shankly quote at its head, "If you can't support us when we lose or draw, don't support us when we win," and the occasional digs (or what feel like digs) at the commitment of the Wakefield public in backing the team, it is easy to feel like your own commitment is being questioned.
For me, the commitment of anyone who watches Wakefield cannot be questioned. Every season, we know what we are going to get: a team that will win not one piece of silverware, and the highlight will be the occasional big scalp, hopefully against Leeds or Cas, with the outside chance of a play-off spot before being dumped out with barely a sniff of Old Trafford or Wembley. It's a never-ending trail of false dawns followed by bust, of limping through yet another crisis. Anyone who chooses to spend any of their time and money on that cause should never have their commitment questioned. Sanity maybe. Commitment? No.
People buy season tickets for different reasons. Some buy them because they make small financial sense if they go to all the games. Some, and I suspect most, buy them because it's their way of showing their support. Personally, I get to a handful of home games, due to an increasingly busy calendar, but I buy one because I see it as doing my bit. In the same way that I'm in the club lottery, and in the same way that I have a direct debit every month for RFL Cares. It's just me doing my bit.
But I can afford to do those things, and I know that many people can't. That they will pick and choose when funds allow, and perhaps even for no other reason that they will pay to watch a largely lost cause when the going is good or the excitement will be higher. That is their choice and I wouldn't criticise for them for it. After all, the club is better with their occasional twenty quid than without it.
It's my view that as we are so unlikely to ever win anything (or at least in the near future), barring very favourable cup draws, we should try and avoid any negative feelings at all amongst fans, and for some reason we have managed to generate some.
My own view of Michael Carter is that he has done an excellent job at stabilising the club and I'm sure he's a decent guy. I was just making the point that the perceptions generated are not fan-friendly when compared to when Glover was in charge; unfortunately, Glover was balance sheet unfriendly. I made the fair point (or so I thought) that a mix of the two would be great, with some "shout it from the rooftop, everything is fantastic" double-glazing rhetoric backed by sound finances. What I got back was a fairly aggressive response.
I know the chairman ended up with a role he hadn't signed up for when he first became involved, but I sell a product too that involves me meeting people, even though that was never why I started to do ot. I write crime fiction. I've sold over a million books worldwide and am published in French, German, Polish and Russian. Even though relatively speaking one cheesed off reader matters little, I have never responded to anyone in anything other than a friendly manner, even when perhaps my real thoughts were different (even when I got a one star review because their Kindle broke when reading one of mine) because:
- beware the angry internet user
- one happy customer might tell someone else. One unhappy customer all definitely tell someone else, and probably more.
What I have never done is say to someone, "if you think you can do better, buy a typewriter", or suggested to my readers that if they really want me to carry on writing, they had better show more commitment and spread the word.
The point I'm making, in a rather long-winded fashion, is that a perception is being allowed to build that the fans aren't the most welcome, and aren't made to feel welcome, and it's a shame. Despite what I might say, I've no doubt I'll end up buying a season ticket, but I just wish I felt like we're all in it together a bit more. Wakefield has always been a family club, with the supporters at its heart. Look at what Snowie and others did earlier in the year with the barriers. Maybe I read things wrongly, but the perception I have is that some of that is being lost, and I am clearly not the only one.
