Lundinsponytail
Active member
- Joined
- 24 Dec 2017
- Messages
- 322
First of all, really good news to have clarity over the ownership and direction of the club. There has been palpable drift over the last year or so as the negotiations as to who would be the controlling shareholder have clearly taken longer than expected.
But now the clouds have parted, and we have the opportunity to spy - at last - a sunny future for our club.
But the moment of most promise is also the moment of maximal jeopardy - ie things can go badly wrong as well as right.
Nearly 25 years ago, I was a 22 year-old season ticket holder in the London Road when a new owner promised us a great future. According to this man I was to spend my 20s, 30s and 40s watching a revitalized OUFC playing top 2 tier football in a modern stadium, with other facilities providing the cash to power us back up the leagues (it was then only 10 years since we had been in the top flight).
We needn't rehearse what happened next. But it is worth revisiting WHY it all went wrong. Basically, the City Council were hopelessly naive, and the Fans groups who had come together to save the club- SOUS/FOUL etc were so relieved that we werent going to be rattling buckets any longer that we took it on trust that everybody could be trusted to act in the best long-term interests of the club.
So we missed our moment of maximum.leverage (the planning process) and indeed almost encouraged the council to bend over forwards.
Two years later, the horrible truth had emerged and a group of fans met in the Catherine Wheel for an inaugural committee meeting of OxVox (I may be garbling the precise dates), part of the new Supporters Trust movement intended to safeguard the long-term interests of clubs against the naturally more short-term motives of owners and 3rd parties.
In short, OxVox was created and designed for precisely this moment. A moment when the next 25 years of our club will likely be determined.
This is absolutely not to say that our present owners have the same malign intent as OBG. But it is to say that there are a number of ways in which the new stadium project can be financially-designed.
It is OxVox's job to act transparently and publicly on behalf of the fans present and future, and fight for the best deal possible for the club.
In recent years there has been a slight tendency towards private, behind-the-scenes cosy un-minuted chats between Trust and club officials. I humbly submit that that needs to stop, as does the weird catch-all of 'commercial confidentiality' to explain why fans are being kept in the dark. After all, it was doubtless commercially confidential when Kassam was planning the rape of our club all those years ago that led to so much misery.
To repeat, this is not at all to impugn the motives of Thohir and Bakrie. It is simply a plea to learn the lessons of history and to avoid us being the insane man continuing to do the same thing whilst expecting a different outcome.
But now the clouds have parted, and we have the opportunity to spy - at last - a sunny future for our club.
But the moment of most promise is also the moment of maximal jeopardy - ie things can go badly wrong as well as right.
Nearly 25 years ago, I was a 22 year-old season ticket holder in the London Road when a new owner promised us a great future. According to this man I was to spend my 20s, 30s and 40s watching a revitalized OUFC playing top 2 tier football in a modern stadium, with other facilities providing the cash to power us back up the leagues (it was then only 10 years since we had been in the top flight).
We needn't rehearse what happened next. But it is worth revisiting WHY it all went wrong. Basically, the City Council were hopelessly naive, and the Fans groups who had come together to save the club- SOUS/FOUL etc were so relieved that we werent going to be rattling buckets any longer that we took it on trust that everybody could be trusted to act in the best long-term interests of the club.
So we missed our moment of maximum.leverage (the planning process) and indeed almost encouraged the council to bend over forwards.
Two years later, the horrible truth had emerged and a group of fans met in the Catherine Wheel for an inaugural committee meeting of OxVox (I may be garbling the precise dates), part of the new Supporters Trust movement intended to safeguard the long-term interests of clubs against the naturally more short-term motives of owners and 3rd parties.
In short, OxVox was created and designed for precisely this moment. A moment when the next 25 years of our club will likely be determined.
This is absolutely not to say that our present owners have the same malign intent as OBG. But it is to say that there are a number of ways in which the new stadium project can be financially-designed.
It is OxVox's job to act transparently and publicly on behalf of the fans present and future, and fight for the best deal possible for the club.
In recent years there has been a slight tendency towards private, behind-the-scenes cosy un-minuted chats between Trust and club officials. I humbly submit that that needs to stop, as does the weird catch-all of 'commercial confidentiality' to explain why fans are being kept in the dark. After all, it was doubtless commercially confidential when Kassam was planning the rape of our club all those years ago that led to so much misery.
To repeat, this is not at all to impugn the motives of Thohir and Bakrie. It is simply a plea to learn the lessons of history and to avoid us being the insane man continuing to do the same thing whilst expecting a different outcome.
No-one like you, no-one likes you, no-one likes you we don`t care............. now f**k off. 
