General Football 23/24

[Gibbo]

Guardian sport @guardian_sport 51s
Hull City fans vote narrowly in favour of changing club name to Tigers http://gu.com/p/3z8kk/tw via @guardian

There's a fair few conspiracy theories about that.

[Roboklopp]

Like what?

[Fivex]

Out for 6 months. So unlucky.

As is whoever put Jay in their 'going to the world cup' accy - was it Muddled?

[Gibbo]

Loads of fans not being able to vote, some of them are claiming that the way the vote was structured sort of came across as a threat (something along the lines of would you rather have Hull Tigers with your chairman or are you against Hull Tigers), Rumours of staff and sponsors being able to vote as well as season ticket holders, all sorts really. It's not my club so I'm not arsed but the hardcore's I know are furious.

[Gibbo]

In fact;

Ballot result response from CTWD

The City Till We Die (CTWD) campaign group notes the result of the ballot organised over the last two weeks by Hull City football club.

We are pleased that supporters treated the ballot as a validation of Dr Allam’s ownership of the football club, rather than believing the masquerade that this was a vote on the name change.

The truth of the matter is that this result is largely meaningless, either as a measure of opinions regarding the name change proposal, or as a measure of the supporters’ desire to see Dr Allam and his son Ehab stay at the City helm. The yawning deficiencies of the ballot were there for all to see.

The ballot form’s presentation of the case for only one of the options flew in the face of all reasonable conventions.
The loaded nature of the questions, which conflated the name change proposal with the owners’ desire to validate their ownership amongst supporters, made the responses to each question confused and garbled.
The inclusion of the entirely bizarre and divisive “not bothered” option added further irrelevance to the ballot.

Then there was the haphazard manner in which the ballot was conducted.

Large swathes of the season card-holding electorate failed to receive an email inviting them to cast a vote, meaning they had to rely on the media (or CTWD!) to hear about the important decision that they were being asked to make.
The ballot form provided for downloading was so poorly created that hundreds of people sent in blank responses, after having completed their votes and seen their details wiped from the form.
The apparent insecurity of both the boxes provided to receive hard copy ballot forms, and the email account holding the returned ballots remains a cause for concern. The email account was supposedly totally secure, yet Hull City staff were routinely able to report on the number of votes cast.
The ballot boxes for hard copy forms were supposed to be available for use during two fixtures at the KC Stadium, one a City match and the other a Hull FC fixture, yet twice people were turned away. How many voters simply gave up in the face of such incompetence?

Such basic process errors makes one wonder what the independent adjudicators Beyond Dispute – hired at great expense to Hull City, we are assured by the club – were up to when the ballot process was conceived and enacted.

As long ago as last November, CTWD called on Dr Allam to undertake a fair and simple ballot amongst season card holders, to gauge opinions about his proposed name change. Instead he conducted a decidedly unfair ballot, which was far from simple and appallingly managed, four months after it was useful and several weeks after the FA announced its provisional recommendation on the name change.

It is a matter of great regret to CTWD that Dr Allam has continued to act so disrespectfully to Hull City supporters. We genuinely hope that we have now reached the end of this sorry episode. We call for the name Hull City to be retained for good, allowing supporters to focus their minds on the tremendous feats that Steve Bruce, the coaching staff and the playing staff have achieved thanks to the unprecedented financial generosity of Dr Allam.

Who knows, win against Everton in our last League fixture and Hull City might be playing in the Europa League next season! We fervently hope that City supporters are given the chance to savour that possibility with this name change debacle put behind us.

[meffin]

Don't think Rodriguez had any chance of going to the world cup to be honest

[Muddled]

As is whoever put Jay in their 'going to the world cup' accy - was it Muddled?

Yeah, a potential £200 gone. I'm going to have to fund my own World Cup beer now. Thanks a lot, Jay.

[Fivex]

Should have plumped for Ricky like me.

[RichC]

Sterling, Hendo & Lallana for me

[Fivex]

*******. Just checked and that wasn't actually my bet. Ffs

[Gibbo]

Was it Jay?

[McDermotX]

Ireland-England friendly confirmed for next summer.

FAI ✔ @FAIreland

Ireland will play England in @AVIVAStadium on 7/6/2015!We've also launched our 2014/2015 season tic package! Details: http://bit.ly/PXZn98

Should be in General Football 2015, just in case some smart arse comments.

[Liverpel]

Ireland-England friendly confirmed for next summer.



Should be in General Football 2015, just in case some smart arse comments.

They said on the radio that it's the day after next year's Champions League final. Any idea why that would be as late as June 6th?

I guess it will be a weakened England side, without Sturridge, Sterling, Gerrard, Henderson etc.

[McDermotX]

Yeah.......that is weird.

Love the optimism though

[fah-q]

Is the season starting late because of the world cup? That seems very late for the CL Final.