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Melbourne City Supporters' Group


Harrison
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Should a Melbourne City Supporters' Group be established?  

25 members have voted

  1. 1. Should a Melbourne City Supporters' Group be established?

    • Yes
      24
    • No
      1


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As @jw1739 suggested in another thread, and obviously after the news of Bruno Fornaroli's departure, there is potentially a role to be played by a supporters' group that can be a proper, recognisable voice for City fans. A group that can unite us fans and ensure that our voices are heard by the Club. 

I've put up a poll to gauge the level of support for such a group. This is purely to test whether it would even be viable to create such a group and if the support isn't there then I think we can put it to bed.

If there is enough support (and I don't really know how much would be 'enough'), we can then discuss the structure and purpose of the group. IMO it could be something as simple as an 'information' group without any formal structure or constitution. 

 

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Yes please - whether the club has enough balls to accept this and agree to meet up with this group, remains a big questions.

Also it needs to be made clear that such a group isn't affiliated with the travelling fans and or / the city terrace, unless they will have their own reps in this group. 

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1 hour ago, Harrison said:

As @jw1739 suggested in another thread, and obviously after the news of Bruno Fornaroli's departure, there is potentially a role to be played by a supporters' group that can be a proper, recognisable voice for City fans. A group that can unite us fans and ensure that our voices are heard by the Club. 

I've put up a poll to gauge the level of support for such a group. This is purely to test whether it would even be viable to create such a group and if the support isn't there then I think we can put it to bed.

If there is enough support (and I don't really know how much would be 'enough'), we can then discuss the structure and purpose of the group. IMO it could be something as simple as an 'information' group without any formal structure or constitution. 

 

Good idea.

May I suggest that we make every fan feel included, even those who don't sign up. i.e. don't want to get into a situation where we think that if you don't join, then your opinion isn't as important.

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41 minutes ago, rass said:

Good idea.

May I suggest that we make every fan feel included, even those who don't sign up. i.e. don't want to get into a situation where we think that if you don't join, then your opinion isn't as important.

IMO absolutely essential. 

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I helped set up the FRG in the Heart days, and being right at the coldface during the CFG takeover and meeting Pearce at the Crown Casino was quite a moment ... 

The intent of the FRG was to be a genuine fan engagement opportunity for the club, and we did a fair bit of work setting up a terms of reference and deciding how the group would work.

The members were selected by the club and tbh I was the only one who really grilled the club on behalf of the forum and had many great genuine conversations with club officials, including Munn ... most of the other members really only represented themselves and were more fan boys of the club rather than putting the club under a bit of acid in terms of how things were going at any particular time.

what I quickly realised with CFG was that the FRG was pretty irrelevant and CFG didn’t really need that group to engage, based on their resources ... they were always just going to do their own thing. I jumped off the FRG when Murphy joined the group as I figured he would be good at representing the forum. But after I left the group he disappeared overseas and then the forum had no representation.

A fully independent supporters group is a great idea and if set up the right way, with some form of charter and rules of operation could absolutely get a seat at the table with CFG and be involved in terms of influencing the club.

Personally I don’t have the time to be involved but I would certainly contribute occasionally and watch with interest how things go

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I'm thinking that we might have some leverage on the club via our use of the City of Melbourne coat of arms.

https://www.news.com.au/sport/football/a-league/melbourne-city-football-club-partners-with-city-council-to-promote-cultural-events/news-story/5d71c303d90f5cfc7e97af513cd5c526

KIDS will get free coaching and top soccer players will take part in cultural events under a major partnership between the city council and the re-branded Melbourne City Football Club.

The council has allowed the club to use a stylised version of the City of Melbourne coat of arms for its logo in return for a program of community engagement.

Melbourne City officially became the new name of A-League club Heart this month after English football powerhouse Manchester City bought the team earlier this year.

Melbourne City sought a partnership with the council based on similar ventures with local authorities involving Manchester City and its US franchise New York City FC.

Lord Mayor Robert Doyle said the memorandum-of-understanding signed with the club came at an exciting time with the World Cup underway in Brazil.

“Melbourne’s growing legion of soccer fans will have access to free coaching and participation sessions on match days and during school visits,” he said.

“The community engagement activities offered by Melbourne City FC as part of the MOU will complement Melbourne’s status as an active, sport-loving city.”

It is envisaged that club players will take part in city cultural events such as Chinese New Year celebrations, the Antipodes Festival and Lygon St’s Italian Festa.

Melbourne City FC CEO Scott Munn said the club already had a long association with the City of Melbourne that affected more than 10,000 people a year.

“This new agreement will enable us to expand that impact even further through the delivery of world-class sporting, cultural and community programs tailored to the needs of the City of Melbourne and the State of Victoria,” he said.

Mr Munn said Melbourne City would also draw on the expertise of its sister clubs Manchester City and New York City while delivering the community and cultural programs.

Melbourne City’s chances for the upcoming season have been boosted with Spanish superstar David Villa to play several matches on loan from New York City and the signing of former Ireland international Damien Duff for a one-year deal.

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I like the idea but what would be the purpose of the group? In a franchise model supporters are simply consumers and a group as wealthy as CFG does not need to listen to supporters - so long as people keep turning up to games. @Torn Asunder has already outlined how FRG disappeared. Are there lessons to be learnt from that experience?

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12 hours ago, Torn Asunder said:

I helped set up the FRG in the Heart days, and being right at the coldface during the CFG takeover and meeting Pearce at the Crown Casino was quite a moment ... 

The intent of the FRG was to be a genuine fan engagement opportunity for the club, and we did a fair bit of work setting up a terms of reference and deciding how the group would work.

The members were selected by the club and tbh I was the only one who really grilled the club on behalf of the forum and had many great genuine conversations with club officials, including Munn ... most of the other members really only represented themselves and were more fan boys of the club rather than putting the club under a bit of acid in terms of how things were going at any particular time.

what I quickly realised with CFG was that the FRG was pretty irrelevant and CFG didn’t really need that group to engage, based on their resources ... they were always just going to do their own thing. I jumped off the FRG when Murphy joined the group as I figured he would be good at representing the forum. But after I left the group he disappeared overseas and then the forum had no representation.

A fully independent supporters group is a great idea and if set up the right way, with some form of charter and rules of operation could absolutely get a seat at the table with CFG and be involved in terms of influencing the club.

Personally I don’t have the time to be involved but I would certainly contribute occasionally and watch with interest how things go

@Torn Asunder Thanks for that. To your knowledge, what is the current set up out there at Bundoora? Is there a designated "Fan Engagement" person any more? The last I recall was a David Lyons.

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11 hours ago, thisphantomfortress said:

My 2 cents. Get ready for politics and in fighting. 

It's just an idea at this stage, but my original idea was that if it goes ahead it has to be inclusive of all supporters who want to "join" and should be as informal as it can be and still have a useful role. I see no point if small groups are going to consider themselves exclusive. Many such groups and forums exist all over the place (that are nothing to do with football) and function perfectly well with only a minimum of formality.

I don't see such a group as just a "supporters versus the club" group.

Also there's no need to rush. What's done is done.

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