Hi Paul,
I take your comments on board and appreciate your clarifications. I would also echo your caution and ask that others be as mindful of their own choice of words moving forward as is being asked of me. What people actually say, regardless of what anyone thinks they mean, is very important when certain legal terms start being chucked around.
As far as OxVox goes, while it goes without saying that the majority of people appreciate the work that committee members put in, I think it would be fair to say that there has been a fair bit of uncertainty building over a number of months now, which in recent weeks has started to morph into frustration. There is a perceived lack of impetus being shown regarding any issues that aren’t based around the stadium.
Although it’s patently obvious that the stadium situation is critical and of enormous significance, there are other issues of real importance to the membership and wider supporter base. The lack of any sort of fans’ forum,
as promised by the club a full year ago, is wholly unacceptable. There is absolutely no justification for this sort of delay and it’s becoming increasingly apparent that the club is making a concerted effort to avoid engaging with its “customers”. Tim Williams is seemingly happy to go on third party podcasts and talk about himself, but he won’t even do a sit down with Radio Oxford to answer questions sent in from fans for 20 minutes, let alone sit at a table in front of 50-odd people for an hour. They are actively turning their noses up at people.
I am sure that this is something the committee has brought up with the club several times, but at this point it is clear that asking simply isn’t cutting it. If OxVox does not have the ability to make the club take it seriously, or rather if the club does not respect the trust or its members enough to do anything more than waft it away, perhaps its condemnation needs to be a little firmer. I think there is a growing feeling, whether you believe it’s fair or not, that the dynamic between the club and OxVox is far too lopsided. What people are told, and what they see and feel, aren’t aligned at present.
A lot has happened since people last got to speak to the people who matter. We are weeks, possibly even
days away from planning application going in for a stadium that we are regularly told is going to define whether or not the club exists in less than three years, and we know almost nothing. We haven’t heard a peep from any major shareholder of the football club in two full years, despite the fact that these people are presumably the ones funding it all, and the people employed to run things on the ground appear to actively loathe the idea of communicating with the same people they are happy to let fight for it on their behalf.
There are some
seriously big questions that need answering. What happens if there is not a stadium ready to go in just 2.5 years, regardless of why or whose fault that would be? Has Oxford United held even informal discussions with any other EFL club - MK Dons, for example - about potentially ground sharing on a temporary basis? If not, at what point would they have to acknowledge and start preparing for the possibility? How much notice would other clubs insist on prior to commencement of a joint-tenancy? We almost certainly can’t just strike a deal a few months before moving in. The revenue deficit would be enormous between reduced crowds and reduced commercial income. Have they even looked at these potential figures? Has the EFL been asking these questions? If so, what have they been told? If not, are we sure they’ll be okay with the club just packing its bags and moving to another county for an unspecified amount of time?
The timeframe is incredibly tight. I have barely commented on the stadium situation publicly because I have a link to someone who is involved in certain aspects of the process. Aside from confidence or confidentiality I have been wary of posting anything that could give our watching NIMBY friends any ammunition that could harm the club’s cause or give them any extra encouragement, but I think it would be fair (and safe) for me to say that some of the complexities of the triangle are deceptively large. It’s really important that there is an opportunity for people to ask questions, because being able to publicly table concerns and get questions like the above on the public record is how people are held to account. The people who need to answer those questions know this, of course, which in my opinion is exactly why they don’t want to do so.
I don’t expect a detailed reply, or necessarily
any reply, but given the past few days is the most publicly visible the committee has been in a very long time, I felt this needed putting across. While I have seen the requests for people to email the trust with any concerns, which most of the time may indeed be the best way for all involved, I think that in this particular case it’s no bad thing for some of these points to be addressed in a more open manner.
Thanks, and hopefully you can take a few of these concerns forward and ask some of these questions when you next get the opportunity, if you haven’t already. I’m sure that many members would be extremely keen to know the answer to some of them.
(Sorry
@SteMerritt)