When a football club has had/is having a difficult season, it is inevitable the press will be there to voice critical opinion. That is the way it should be. That is the way it has always been. That is the way it will ALWAYS be.
Everyone at Carlisle United fully supports this concept. The Club is always receptive to constructive criticism. It welcomes an exchange of ideas between its supporters, the press and, indeed, members of any organisation which feels it/they have something of merit to put forward. Like the local newspaper, the Club is a vibrant and integral part of the community and certainly Carlisle United takes its role within the community very seriously.
However. do the above sentiments mean that the Club should meekly lie back and fail to respond and ignore certain columnists who write for, say, the News and Star and Gazette newspapers, who constantly voice hysterical. critical opinion often based on their own narrow, ill-informed views? We do receive letters from our fans urging us to take some kind of action but before we do we would like to consult our supporters. There can be no doubt that the sometimes ludicrous hectoring and oft hysterical posturing of certain columnists can be irksome. Our supporters are aware that these people make their living from writing about their club. It has been argued recently that certain writers also claim to be dedicated devout fans of the Club. They tend to utilise their columns to have a "say", "a desire to influence opinion" - nothing wrong with that we say, so long as their sentiments are constructive and mature opinions that one would expect from journalists writing in a highly reputable and respected newspaper. However, it has been charged that the implied sentiments in the writings of some columnists actually seek to encourage fans "to boycott games", "to demonstrate", "to have sit-ins", "to have walk-outs", "to chant abuse", etc., etc. All this under the guise of having the Club's best interests at heart".
Their subtle calls for a mass boycott of games serves only to threaten the very existence of your football club. These irresponsible rantings threaten to kill the very club that these columnists claim to support and are in danger of denying the REAL fans the chance to follow the fortunes (good or bad) of the Club they love. Not to mention possibly jeopardising the very livelihoods of some eighty full-time employees who work at Carlisle United, most of whom are Oval, dedicated fans Working for the Club's cause.
For the obsessively crazed aspiring journalist seeking to make a name for himself such possible consequences of his writing are irrelevant to him. The columnist may even simply use his new-found vehicle just to bent his own personal feelings as a frustrated fan himself. We ask, is this responsible journalism or is it fanzine-like philosophy?
FOR THE RECORD
YES: The Chairman does take full responsibility position - he always has done and always will do wet Chairman. He is not the sort of man to ever look foray would certainly not attribute responsibility to any others his own.
YES: A written transfer bid was put to Bolton Waft the 22nd December 1997 for the services of Peter Beardsley for a fee of £225,000. This was done with the full support of the Directors, John Halpin and David Wilkes and of course the Chairman who liaised with Bolton Wanderers' chief Executive, Des McBain, during the negotiations. That is why we, as a club, were simply nonplussed when the local press, having spoken to Colin Todd, ran a story that no such attempt had been made. Des McBain confirmed to our Chairman that Peter Beardsley was informed of the offer. Unfortunately for all parties an agreement could not be found to settle Peter's existing contract with Bolton and no further progress was made. We at the Club too, along with many fans, think that Peter would be the ideal person to assist our cause but only at a price that is affordable, not bankruptable.
YES: we accept this season has been profoundly disappointing. It impacts on everyone at the Club. Our supporters are frustrated, staff livelihoods may be affected, the Chairman's investment is significantly diluted, our Club Sponsors will look carefully at their future involvement, season ticket sales are affected. Clearly, it is nothing other than a very very difficult situation for everyone concerned with the Club. Needless to say, therefore, relegation is the last thing we want. However, if newspaper columnists think there is an easy solution by simply rushing out and buying players to prevent such fate, then simply look at the eleven teams to be relegated across the divisions, many of which have spent millions of pounds, have top names as managers and are still in the same situation as ourselves, but are also now in a precarious financial situation in their reckless drive for success.
YES: we at the Club want to do better for the all round benefit of the club - especially for it's life blood, i.e. the Club's "real" supporters and sponsors. Without them there is no Carlisle United.
YES: The real supporters, the silent majority, are everything (not some crackpot journalist with his acidic invective, usually hurled at the Chairman and some players). It is the loyal supporters working with the Club's management and not against the management who will eventually achieve the success that the real fan deserves, i.e. the three thousand silent majority who suffer just as deeply but with dignity and refrain from the rantings of the wannabe journalists and the bully boo-boy tactics on the terraces.
YES: We are keen (always have been - remember the Cooperative Scheme) to bring on board real supporter power and influence to the football club. The chairman is particularly receptive for the supporters to elect their representatives to bring direct influence to bear on the management of the club. We would like supporters to write to the chairman to see how they would like this idea to be developed.
YES: it is true that rumour after rumour abounds regarding the future of the club. This is nothing new - it has always been thus. Virtually every day a new rumour of some kind emerges- if not directly from newspaper columnists themselves, certainly from the various sources throughout the city. No-one should be surprised by this - Carlisle United is a big club in a small city. An old chestnut is the Wiseman Dairies takeover. The Club can confirm that NO APPROACH from Wiseman Dairies, or any other organisation, or any other businessman, has been made either to take a share or to take control of the club. Again, no-one should be surprised - where were these people in 1992?
YES: The Chairman from day one has always been willing to stand aside to hand control over to the right organisation. He is not a man to cling to station at all costs but wishful newspaper columnists and bullying boo boy tactics only make the Chairman's determination and resolve stronger to remain steadfast.
YES: Are people Surprised that no businessman or organisation is eager to come forward, having witnessed how the industry and the culture of British football has changed over the last five years? It is Chairmen/owners who have become the target of abuse as opposed to anyone else in a football club. Chairmen are a target for abuse and ridicule and the object of the bullying fraternity. This is one of the reasons why no-one is actually beating a path to the Chairman's door to take over the football club and put themselves in that sort of firing line.
YES: we do constantly hear chants of "we want a manager, we want experience". What sort of experience do we need? Virtually every Club, across the four divisions, facing relegation is managed/coached by an ex-player with full international honours, trillions of League charges to his name, following on from an illustrious career played in the top flight of our industry. We still hear fans at those clubs also screaming 'we want a manager". Furthermore, many of those managers have also spent quite significant sums of money to avoid a relegation situation - again without success - yet we constantly hear the wise columnists harping on about how Carlisle will never achieve success Without a manager with similar credentials''. Others constantly refer to Mick Wadsworth and Mervyn Day as two of the greatest managers the club has ever had. No-one can deny that the club enjoyed many highs and lows under the leadership of Mick Wadsworth. The Chairman has made no secret of the fact that he has the highest respect and regard for Mick Wadsworth. Interestingly, in season 1995/96 when the club was relegated back to Division Three under Mick Wadsworth and Mervyn Days their results were: Points 49; Goals 57; Away Wins 1. Before tonight's game against Grimsby our current management/coaching team have achieved 44 Wins; 54 goals, 4 Away Wins and with three games Weft they are on target to equal and if not better Mick and Mervyn's achievements at this level, having sold three million pounds worth of talent to boot and arguably working in a much tougher Second Division than in 1995/96. Therefore, the evidence simply does not support the rantings of newspaper columnists or the bully boo-boys who shout "we want a manager".
EVERYONE AT THE CLUB wholeheartedly believes that a free and encumbered press is a concept that must be unconditionally accepted. This is true of everyone at Carlisle United. But why is it that virtually everyone in football (at least off the record) is so distrustful of newspapers in general and certain columnists in particular??
Football incites raw passion in all its followers whatever their background. It does not take a genius, let alone a newspaper man, to work out that if this passion can be harnessed by a columnist or by the newspaper adopting a certain position on any football issue, then this "PASSION" equals newspaper sales, cash and pure profit for the newspaper coffers. What better angle for a newspaper to adopt than appearing to champion the cause of the "REAL FAN". The newspaper seems to care little about how they may unsettle sponsors, investors, real supporters players: it seems to care little how their incessant unreasonable criticism disincentivise potential investors, Chairmen, would-be Chairmen/Directors, all in the selfish cause of increasing newspaper sales for that particular day.
Carlisle United could never win a battle/war against its local press. The local press is a regionalised, monopolistic media giant. It is big, powerful, hugely profitable with huge resources at its disposal. Columnists in the local press have an opportunity to bring home any message, any interpretation any angle on a daily basis. The onslaught is unstoppable. they are all-powerful. They can create heroes, villains, form opinions which carry clout - all at the stroke of a pen. The newspaper is/are the message creators as well as the carriers. Half a millennium ago it was the pulpit - today it is the press. They are omnipotent, all embracing. In the age of information they are the true rulers of our planet - especially planet football.
Give any idiot a place him at a news desk in the office of a respected/reputable local paper - there you have the proverbial fox in a chicken pen, child in a sweetie shop, pig in muck and Frankenstein in an electricity generator - you have one helluva dangerous entity.
Even with limited, sometimes zero literary skill, the journalists opinions suddenly COUNT. His opinions carry the influence, the authority, the potent clout of the respected vehicle in which they are read. True, the new-found success of the idiot journalist or wannabe journalist with his immature and smug view of the football world suddenly finds that he wears the golden mantle, he finds he is carrying the Olympic torch. he holds the Holy Grail with the trusty shield of "truth" and respectability of his new-found vehicle giving legitimacy to his inflated misinformed views. For some journalists in this position their unbridled egos now lead them to believe themselves to be cult-like figures, championing the cause of all that is right and just at a football club. He is now the anointed one - the Titan, his followers (he believes) have elected him to head up the campaign which must rid the evils of the villain of the piece in his child-like and crazed world. Tis he who must lead the crusade to see the Chairman slain. Slain according to the righteous moral high ground of the new Titan, wielding his titanic hammerhead God-like to smash the Anti-Christ into unconditional submission to the power of his new-found influence. With every tooth turn of the printer's jig, the columnist spews out ever increasing invective against the sworn enemy - all this in the cause of "it's in the best interests of the club", "my crusade is for the real fans"! The anti-Christ in the board room is not even human - according to the sentiments of the columnist so how can he be a football fan?
Editors with a big club in a small town are quick to realise they have a captive, hungry audience waiting to devour every word they write about the town's Fooball League Club and those who work for it. The newspaper can never lose. It will simply explode with praise in the club's good times, editors and columnists alike will see the newspaper gorge in the trough of the club's success - by oozing special features, special congrats, columns (all in the best interests of the club) more like all in aid of boosting the fat coffers of the newspaper to bursting point. In difficult times for the Club, again the paper wins. It devotes acres of column inches, it allows its new hero-like columnists to heap scorn on those they perceive to be responsible for the club's failures. In clumsily written and pathetically hidden statements its message from the careerist journalist is to incite the fans to be vindictive, to be discourteous, to vent their anger and frustration by an open invitation to write letters to the caring, soul caressing editor waiting to lap up the woes of the frustrated fan by allowing those fans to air their views in the local press - "all in the best interests of the dub". The editor is acutely aware that such invitations usually only appeal to the negative, to the fan that holds the same views as the titan columnist. Usually the invitation spreads further than the opportunity of seeing the author's letter in print - the paper also often will include an 0891 telephone number, you know - the lines that should be called "everyone a winner", "the tic tac toe phone bandit line" to boost the coffers of the newspaper still further- another New Age tool to ease the pain of the down trodden 'Fan' - happily provided by the all caring, all sympathising local news paper.
WITH POWER comes RESPONSIBILITY Newspaper proprietors/editors should note that when they allow fanzine type columnists amongst their ranks and clothe them in the cloak of respectability, provide them with a vehicle which gives their opinion unwarranted respectability, then inevitably the new titan-like columnists targets are going to find it difficult not to respond.
REMEMBER ill-informed columnists who constantly ridicule those people that help to keep the club a float will not bring about change by their vindictive, campaigns they maintain via their newspaper columns. Indeed, they inadvertently but certainly DISSUADE new investors/owners from coming forward. Indeed, it is these childlike columnist who are in grave danger of DESTROYING your club for all time. Read these pages in the next home programme to learn more of the damage that these reckless and irresponsible people are doing to your club.
Your club asks you - its supporters, that is its REAL, THE THREE AND A HALF THOUSAND SILENT MAJORITY AND GENUINE HARD CORE SUPPORTERS how best the club might respond to the News and Star and Gazette's ever increasingly hostile and miss informed critical approach to your club and its management. Please write to the Publicity Department at Carlisle United with your ideas and remarks. There will be no 'phone line, but do feel free to write your letters of advice.
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