Shrimps Trust: Latest Update.

I published an article about the Shrimps Trust here this time last week. My intention behind doing this was to stimulate a debate about what the Trust actually does. I also wanted to try and find out from the Horse’s Mouth – so to speak – why so many suggestions made at a Crisis Meeting hosted by the organisation last May have been rejected out of hand by its leadership. We shall come back to that shortly.  However, I hope you will indulge me in making a very short personal statement before we go any further.

I knew when I published my version of what happened at May’s meeting that it would provoke a lively discussion and the Social Media wires were red hot for a couple of days after I did so. I also knew that the syndrome known as Shooting the Messenger would inevitably ensue. Sadly, it’s a fact that some people, faced with a situation they don’t like, lash out at the bearer of this bad news rather than actually think about whatever it is that has been brought to their attention – and possibly do something about it. So it was no surprise when the Usual Suspects accused Yours Truly of being a Know-it-All; indulging in a Power Trip; stabbing the Trust in the back; being a Smartarse – yada yada yada. This is nothing new and I learnt a long time ago that human instinct is always to justify our own actions and look for someone else to blame.

Don’t know what I’m talking about?

http://d3d4football.com/the-blame-game-by-roger-fitton/

I’m not daft enough to claim that I’m sufficiently old and crusty to have heard it all before. Sometimes, the things some people choose to write in a public space take even me by surprise. For example, I am indebted to one Michael Gibson, who took the trouble to express the following thoughts on Faceflannel:

“That whole comment smacks desperately of an unsatisfied ego. Look at me I write stuff and I’m too important to give my time to them. Come now, lie at my feet and defenestrate before me or I shall write more nasty words. If I was the Trust I wouldn’t bother.”

I have to say that I am personally in awe of Michael’s probably unique gift of such very profound insight: it’s quite an extraordinary skill to have, isn’t it? Most mere mortals such as myself would never dream of even attempting such an incredibly deep and almost Freudian analysis of someone they don’t know and have never actually met. Being able to psychologically profile random people in this way is a very rare gift indeed which Mr Gibson is exceptionally fortunate to possess. So I must thank him from the bottom of my heart for taking the trouble of indulging in such a detailed and actually profound analysis of my own personality – and also for avoiding any pomposity which might accompany such an act of unbridled altruism. I must also thank him just as genuinely for giving me the opportunity – as part of what he wrote – to plug my own business on these pages. Michael uses the word `defenestrate’, which – I must concede – sounds pretty good; intellectual, even… unless you know what it actually means.

Mr Gibson had been kind enough to inform me that he thinks it means `to throw someone out of a window’. He’s clearly used the Microsoft dictionary to find this definition.

Spoiler Alert:

This may come as a shock to you – but Microsoft doesn’t always get things right.

To `defenestrate’ actually means simply `to remove a window’ and that, as the Working Glass Hero, is precisely what I do for a living:

More at https://www.facebook.com/UKoriginalWorkingGlassHero

So please heed Michael’s heart-felt plea folks: keep on defenestrating. But remember to get in contact with me first (Shall I pay him a 10% referral fee?)…

Another remark I also found really enlightening was provided by a Joel Shooter. According to his on-line profile, Joel works for the Manchester Evening News (Slogan: There’s News, False News – and Manky News!). Regrettably, Joel doesn’t make it clear whether his involvement with this mighty organ is as a potential Leader writer – or asone of the people who tie the bundles of papers together before throwing them into the delivery van. But I would like to share with you what this member of the Inner Sanctum of the Shrimps Trust has written in the context of my article about the May meeting of the organisation (which I assume he learnt either on a Manky Journo’s Course or possibly even during a Boy Scout’s Knot-Tying Workshop):

“…you’re protected by the honest opinion defence. As long as what you say is your honestly held opinion based on true facts, then you shouldn’t have an issue.”

I may have misunderstood him, but I don’t think this remark was intended kindly. Ironically, though, I absolutely agree with Joel. What I wrote was my honest opinion. Among all the noise and the vitriol which has greeted my article, I can’t see a single entry which disputes my version of events as they unfolded at the Exchange last May. Furthermore – and this is far more important – attempts to address the many questions which people raised from the floor on the night or which I have posed myself in the article have been completely ignored by the individuals who have slagged me off publicly for even daring to raise this subject at all.

Why? For me, the reason is that they have nothing positive to offer about any of these things – and we all know what Empty Vessels have always done, don’t we?

The de facto Chairman of the meeting (whose real name I’m afraid I don’t know) has been on Morecambe fans’ forum Shrimpsvoices and wrote the following as “Morecambe Jack”:

“This article is one of the most offensive things I have ever read written about myself, as the (default) “chair” of the meeting. I had contemplated responding to some of the inaccurate points in it, but quite frankly it just cements my thoughts after the meeting that I will not be putting myself in that position again, and will be very much taking a back seat on Trust activities going forwards!”

I replied:

“”Offensive?” You want to go on the Milton Keynes site, mate and read what they write about me…
I’m truly sorry if you’re offended by what I have written – that wasn’t my intention. However, please don’t be shy: what are these `inaccurate points’ in what I wrote? You can send me a private message if you want and I will address them directly in my blog – that’s a promise.”

He hasn’t done so; in fact he is officially sulking with me and has told social media the same:  “I am not engaging with the author of the article” which is a shame. It would be easy for me to say in response – well, that just shows that there aren’t any `inaccurate points’ after all. But I’m not going to do that. I realise there are lots of valid reasons why this man doesn’t want to put his head above the parapet again – his response basically says as much. It’s not for me to judge and I – at least – don’t have the arrogance that some of our number clearly possess to actually do so. All I will say is that the offer still stands and I hope he will take me up on it once his obvious anger about this matter finally subsides.

So thanks for your indulgence so far. I knew in advance that there would be an adverse – and angry – reaction to what I wrote before I published the article. Finding yourself playing the equivalent of Whack-a-Mole – because you have had the audacity to stir-up a Hornets’ Nest – is part of the collateral damage of doing this which I accept with a kind of weary resignation. However, I also realise that this is not all about me. I know that many people who have the best interests of the club at heart have been upset by what I have written so far. They must ask themselves why I have done it.  Self aggrandisement of some sort? An ego trip? A compulsion to create anarchy? They are all volunteers and I’m sure most of them do their best. In that way, we are in exactly the same boat: I’m a volunteer and I have been doing my best to keep the profile of Morecambe Football Club as high as possible for longer than I care to remember.

But let’s take that analogy a bit further. Imagine that the boat we are all in is the RMS Titanic. Imagine, furthermore, that you are standing on the deck as the huge ship hurtles towards the iceberg which will eventually sink it. You know it’s there in the distance. You know that other people on the ship realise this too.

So what do you do? Keep quiet and wait for the inevitable collision to happen?

Or make a fuss about it in an attempt to avert the disaster which lurks just over the horizon?

If you choose the latter, you know that this will upset people. Some of these will turn on you and accuse you of scaremongering. Or impugn your motives for making a fuss: – self aggrandisement of some sort; being on an ego trip or having a compulsion to create anarchy, for instance. You can hear it, can’t you: “Do you know better than the Captain?” “Who the hell do you think you are?”; ”You have all the answers then do you, Mr Smart Alec?” But none of this changes the fact that the ship is still on a trajectory which will lead to catastrophe.

Nobody except the wilfully blind or deaf can pretend that the iceberg at our club is not the crisis of ownership. The Captain of RMS Morecambe – Derek Adams – has told us as much, as recently as last week:

“Being told you are going to have X amount of money to spend in January and then not getting a single penny to spend in January was really hard because we knew we were only a couple of players away from being able to stay in (that) division.  We finished with the highest points total we’ve ever had in League One but financially, we just couldn’t compete.”

Lack of financial backing – and broken promises – led to the club being relegated for the first time in its 103-year-old history earlier this year. It could happen again this term. If it does, we could be facing a future out of the EFL altogether – or even the collapse of the club altogether in the same way our current owners made sure was the case with leading Rugby Union club Worcester Warriors last season.

How upset do you think we will all feel then?

So what is happening to avoid this?

The simple answer is – nothing.

We all stand by and simply hope that we don’t end-up like Worcester Warriors.

We aren’t organising.

We have no strategy.

The one organisation which purports to represent all of us – the Shrimps Trust – rejects all and any suggestions that could change this position.

On the night of the Crisis Meeting, the Panel rejected out of hand any thoughts of organising a protest March. They pooh-poohed all ideas concerning setting-up a shares fund. They even ignored a suggestion that they might like to investigate the business relationship between the Bond Group and the apparent preferred buyer which was so eloquently called for one of our female members. All this is a matter of record – I am not making it up.

Apparently, the `strategy’ the Trust endorse for the future of our club is that we should all hold our breath or cross our fingers and hope that the crisis will resolve itself – by itself.

For me, this is a policy of despair. Personally, I always try to find the positives in all situations. So that’s why I’m making a fuss now – before it’s too late. I’m genuinely sorry if this has upset or even demotivated or demoralised certain individuals. It seems a bit crass even to me to suggest `you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs’ and I’m not only not unaware of the upset which what I have written has caused in some quarters but I genuinely regret that it has happened. I ask myself, however:  what’s the alternative? Become one of those mute passengers on the Titanic? Or rock the boat before something else wrecks the boat altogether?

I don’t pretend to have all – or even any of the answers – to the crisis which is unfolding at our club – nor have I ever claimed to do so. But I do know without any doubt that there are those among us who do. I intend to do all I can to encourage these people to air their brilliant solutions in public – and not be simply knocked-back – which is what happened at the meeting at the Exchange.

One of the reasons I chose to write my original article in the first place is that I was personally dismayed by the way the meeting in May was run and actually alarmed by the manner in which the panel simply dismissed a string of excellent suggestions made from the floor. I have spoken to some of my pals who support the Shrimps and buy season tickets every year – but aren’t members of the Trust. They have various reasons for not joining but the two constant themes which explain their reluctance to become members are i) a belief that it is a talking shop which never actually does anything and ii) a perception that its leadership is a cosy little clique which operates in secret and does whatever it wants, regardless of the membership’s wishes.

I think there’s a lot of truth in both of these thoughts – and the reaction to what I have written so far tends to confirm this very strongly. However, I am truly heartened by the many really creative and progressive suggestions which my article has also provoked. In just a few days, individual Shrimps’ fans have offered money; ideas and practical skills – such as web design – to modernise the way the Trust runs and swell its coffers at the same time. This shows yet again that there are those people among our ranks who have sensible ideas to positively affect the dire ownership situation our club currently finds itself in but whose hopes and thoughts – very clearly – have been completely ignored so far by people who self-evidently believe they personally know better than everyone else.

But do they?

I’ve tried to find out. Over the weekend, every attempt I made (ten so far) to get a response from them was rejected. However, they have finally relented. I have sent them a simple questionnaire – largely about what happened at May’s meeting – but also to raise general issues with them so we can see exactly how they see their role as far as Morecambe football club is concerned. I hope that they will answer this – as a collective – by this time next week. I have promised them to publish what they say right here this time next week, totally unedited and without any commentary from myself.

I would have hoped that – if they had taken-up one of the suggestions in my original article – they would create a facility on their own website to discuss everybody’s reaction to what they have to say. But this still isn’t currently possible. So – as an interim measure, if you would like to comment on what they have to say; have any alternatives to offer or suggestions which have not been considered so far – maybe you’d just like to pose a question of your own to them – please send them to me at

shrimplythebest@myyahoo.com

I won’t reply but I will send them on to my contact at the Shrimps Trust and ask them to. Then I will publish what they have to say on these pages. That way, there will be at least some sort of communication between the Trust and Morecambe fans generally – for the first time ever. Unless, of course, they refuse to do it…

These are the Questions I have asked the Trust to answer. They will be holding a Board meeting on August 15th and I hope they will address them – and, more importantly – tell us what their answers actually are after it:

  1. Does the Trust feel that the meeting at the Exchange on May 18th last could have been better organised? If so – how?
  2. Is the Trust satisfied a) that everyone who attended on the night had a chance to ask questions?; b) that everyone who was able to address the panel got a fair hearing?; c) that the response of the panel to the suggestions which were made on the night were properly discussed with everyone concerned? If the answer is `no’ to any of these questions, what does the Trust intend to do to remedy these failings, even so long after the actual event?
  3. Does the Trust believe that – in the aftermath of a meeting which was held almost three months ago – that the membership have been adequately informed as to the decisions made by the executive as a result of it? If not – why not? Also if not – what does the Trust intend to do to remedy this?
  4. Would the Trust like to make a statement now about what their policy towards investment in shares in Morecambe Football Club actually is and how it intends to implement whatever plans it has to do this?
  5. Equally, would the Trust care to explain what its attitude to any sort of protest march by Shrimps fans to publicise the financial plight of the club at this moment in time actually is?
  6. Could the Trust clarify its current strategy a) generally and b) specifically concerning the current ownership crisis which Morecambe Football Club is currently undergoing?
  7. The Trust panel acknowledged on the night that its own website was more or less not fit for purpose. Could they let us know a) what steps are being taken to remedy this? b) What changes they would like to see implemented as far as communication with its members – and the broader public – is concerned?
  8. Could the Trust update us on what they have actually achieved – or attempted to achieve a) generally and b) specifically as far as the ownership deadlock at the club is concerned since the meeting of May 18th?
  9. Given that misleading information about the most successful English Fans Trust (Exeter City’s) was given-out by the panel on the night of the meeting, are there a) any plans to contact them for advice or even any suggestions from them about ways we as a collective might be able to adopt any of their strategies? b) to independently study how Exeter fans came to take over the ownership of their club in the hope of copying them or using their policies as inspiration for some of our own?
  10. Has the Trust investigated the actual business or personal links between the Bond Group and Sarbot Johal as was suggested by an attendee at the meeting of almost three months ago? If not – why not?

So it’s over to them. I’ve said what I wanted to say – now it’s their turn…