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Why Are So Few Other Clubs Trust Owned?

haka

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Apr 10, 2004
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NZ
Great motivational message by me in that thread ... "We are staying up!". :oops:

And yes, Exeweb was around long before 2003. I remember celebrating our survival under Noel Blake in 2001.

(There's plenty more on the WayBack Machine, but spare me the embarrassment of digging up my old rubbish ... )
 
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iscalad

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Far away across the field
Thank you. Very interesting reading.
 

robchave

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May 21, 2004
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Central Brittany
Unfortunately, Rob, not true. The two Man U games did not "wipe out our historic debt" - it helped substantially, but it was also down to incredible cost cutting, and money saving, which continued into the next season. Indeed Eamon Dolan (RIP) produced a hard hitting document for the Club Board in 2003 which laid out where expenditure would need to be saved into the future,and what he required to even keep a team afloat in the Conference. During 2003-2004 The Board experienced the arrival of bills and charges which had not formed the basis of what the actual debts were. A lot of the substantial savings were achieved through the efforts of the fans to undertake tasks that had either been ignored, or not carried out by previous regimes - hence "work parties" organised and co-ordinated by people who are easily overlooked when looking at the develpment 2003 to 2022
I absolutely agree with points you make. I was certainly not trying to underplayed the incredible efforts made by staff and volunteers to ensure that the club was viable going forward. But it has to be fair to say that without that huge slice of luck in drawing Man Utd, the task of saving ECFC - in the form we see it today - might well have been insurmountable.
 

C j phill

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Dec 1, 2016
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Just dug out this in tribute to the great man. Interesting to see that even on the eve of our relegation from the Football League there were still plenty of supporters willing to back Russell and Lewis and dis the Trust and Kyunghee:
Its interesting to see the quotes from people criticising you and Ky who still either post on Exeweb or have a fairly high relationship with the Club. I wonder what their view of their comments are, today, given the way history has panned out.
 

David Treharne

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Exeter, Devon
Understandable this thread is getting slightly side tracked but if David T is about i'd like to ask him (As someone who was involved in the very early days of the Trust running/owning the club) why he thinks that not many clubs have become Trust/Fans owned in the last 20 years or so? We've had enough evidence of the Shitesters without money buying clubs but hardly any Professional clubs in the English game have taken the same route as ours.
Fair question and one which I hope to answer in my book on 20 years of Trust Control at Exeter City (not the finished title - just a working one!) which I've been commisioned to write by a well known publisher - who have also given me a dedicated Editor. It's due to be finished by late January 2023 for publication in May/June of next year. The Editor is adamant that it must look at other Trust owned Clubs and reasons for the relative decline in the power they wield. Since I wrote a couple of articles in 2002-3 about the York City Trust, and was lucky enough to attend several of their Trust Board meetings - they'll provide some of the answers, but I also looking at others, several of which have been mentioned already in this thread. I've finished two of the seven chapters, but have a great deal more work to undertake in the way of interviewing those whom I see as key players - so far I've only had two outright refusals - out of 25, and some whom I was sure would say 'no' who were most helpful. Now, incidentally,is not a good time to be asking questions about Trust control, nearly everybody is concentrating on the end of season 2021-22.
As a direct answer to the question I'd suggest that the way that the Trust was set up, with a template from Supporters Direct, and modifications from Tim Hopking, Egg and others has served us well in providing checks and balances that have prevented the direction the Trust has travelled from being diverted too far, though it's come close ona couple of occasions. The there's immediate past history of the Club from 1995 onwards which made the Club an unattractive one to take over. However most of all there's that strange Exonian independence that through a number of key figures has been translated into something that has been worth striving to keep and cherish. Another factor was the help that we received from diverse persons such as David Conn, Ben Bradshaw & Jerry O'Sullivan. Also the willingness persons to step up and fufil largely unfulfilling roles ( or perhaps they were/are fulfilling in their own ways!) which coninues to this day - I'd cite Junior Grecians as proof of this. Above all, it's translated itself into something that is an amalgam of ideas that have emerged as the Trust has developed, perhaps best summed up by the Big bank singing "Oooh Ah, we are Exeter"
On a personal level I though the Cluband Trust model stood a good chance of surviving and thriving on the day that I abandoned the Directors Box at Leigh RMI and went and stood with the huddle of supporters who had travelled on a dismal winters day to cheer on the Club in what must have been the grottiest ground I had ever visited (though on reflection perhaps that was Stafford).
 

DB9

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Jun 19, 2005
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Hampshire. Heart's in N Devon
Fair question and one which I hope to answer in my book on 20 years of Trust Control at Exeter City (not the finished title - just a working one!) which I've been commisioned to write by a well known publisher - who have also given me a dedicated Editor. It's due to be finished by late January 2023 for publication in May/June of next year. The Editor is adamant that it must look at other Trust owned Clubs and reasons for the relative decline in the power they wield. Since I wrote a couple of articles in 2002-3 about the York City Trust, and was lucky enough to attend several of their Trust Board meetings - they'll provide some of the answers, but I also looking at others, several of which have been mentioned already in this thread. I've finished two of the seven chapters, but have a great deal more work to undertake in the way of interviewing those whom I see as key players - so far I've only had two outright refusals - out of 25, and some whom I was sure would say 'no' who were most helpful. Now, incidentally,is not a good time to be asking questions about Trust control, nearly everybody is concentrating on the end of season 2021-22.
As a direct answer to the question I'd suggest that the way that the Trust was set up, with a template from Supporters Direct, and modifications from Tim Hopking, Egg and others has served us well in providing checks and balances that have prevented the direction the Trust has travelled from being diverted too far, though it's come close ona couple of occasions. The there's immediate past history of the Club from 1995 onwards which made the Club an unattractive one to take over. However most of all there's that strange Exonian independence that through a number of key figures has been translated into something that has been worth striving to keep and cherish. Another factor was the help that we received from diverse persons such as David Conn, Ben Bradshaw & Jerry O'Sullivan. Also the willingness persons to step up and fufil largely unfulfilling roles ( or perhaps they were/are fulfilling in their own ways!) which coninues to this day - I'd cite Junior Grecians as proof of this. Above all, it's translated itself into something that is an amalgam of ideas that have emerged as the Trust has developed, perhaps best summed up by the Big bank singing "Oooh Ah, we are Exeter"
On a personal level I though the Cluband Trust model stood a good chance of surviving and thriving on the day that I abandoned the Directors Box at Leigh RMI and went and stood with the huddle of supporters who had travelled on a dismal winters day to cheer on the Club in what must have been the grottiest ground I had ever visited (though on reflection perhaps that was Stafford).
Thank you David, I will look forward to reading the book when it is published, I know the obvious answer about money etc but at our level there has never been real money in football, It is always a difficult balancing act to keep a club afloat, I just find it strange when we hear of people who have no money take on a club and it goes badly but yet there is no clamour for fans to take control, Considering we do have a small fan base we have proved it can work and thrive (Even though at times by the skin of our teeth)
 

Martin Weiler

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Oct 1, 2006
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Oh David ….how can you say that? Leigh RMI ‘the grottiest ground I had ever visited’. In my view it was one of the great iconic grounds of our Conference years. A massive bowl of a place that had once held 31,326 for a Rugby League match. These photos are from my visit in February 2005 when a crowd of 451 graced the arena to see a Sean Devine goal give City a 1-0 victory. My highlight was going into the bowels of the main stand to collect my 50:50 winnings - £35!!! Well come to think of it there was also the memory of a well known Exewebber wandering around near naked in the freezing cold.

A4A1C075-A91A-489E-8B5A-621CB3324D30.jpeg5849A036-603B-42A7-8B22-777BB656F862.jpeg87683D77-3693-40E0-8E2F-3D3C16F62AB7.jpeg
 

SEA Grecian

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I'm loving the history on this thread and it's great to see so many deserving people being name-checked for their part in the success of the trust.
Bringing things back to the present, however, I think the single biggest reason why more clubs are not supporter-owned is the crazy finances of football in this country. Even in League 2 almost every club who wins promotion has to run up a debt to do so, making it increasingly hard for clubs to be run financially sustainably and be competitive. There also seems to be a ceiling in mid-table of League One which is impossible for supporter-owned clubs to break through without selling up first.
 

i8cornwall

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Oh David ….how can you say that? Leigh RMI ‘the grottiest ground I had ever visited’. In my view it was one of the great iconic grounds of our Conference years. A massive bowl of a place that had once held 31,326 for a Rugby League match. These photos are from my visit in February 2005 when a crowd of 451 graced the arena to see a Sean Devine goal give City a 1-0 victory. My highlight was going into the bowels of the main stand to collect my 50:50 winnings - £35!!! Well come to think of it there was also the memory of a well known Exewebber wandering around near naked in the freezing cold.

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What a ground, would rather visit 1 of those then 10 of these B&Q flat pack new grounds you we get now.
 

CityTillIDie

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What a ground, would rather visit 1 of those then 10 of these B&Q flat pack new grounds you we get now.
Couldn’t agree more, I’m very thankful for our ground, the thought of relocating to a bowl out of the city centre is the stuff of nightmares imo
 
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