Please Take Care of our Environment Recycle this Newsletter when no longer required Patron :- Tommy Robson Members of Supporters Direct, The Football Supporters’ Federation and Peterborough Council for Voluntary Service. Sponsored by ‘CHARTERS’ and ‘OAKHAM ALES’ NEWSLETTER No 37 August 2012 Notification of Annual General Meeting and Board Member Nominations. The POSH PLAYERS Line-up for 2012/2013 Season. Latest News on Stadium Development. Pete Lane remembers -- Frank Stimson. ‘FREE’ Trust Membership! when you join the ‘Gold Bond’ Weekly Draw. Website: www.theposhtrust.co.uk E-mail: [email protected] THE POSH SUPPORTERS’ TRUST Registered in England and Wales with the Financial Services Authority as an Industrial & Provident Society. Registration number: 29533R. Patron Tommy Robson Chairman Barry Bennett, Vice-Chair Paul Froggitt, Secretary John Henson, Treasurer Geoff Callen Consultant Peter Lloyd. Directors : Ray Cole, Tony Griffin, Keith Jennings, Paul Little, Walter Moore. The Posh Supporters’ Trust, is a democratic not-for-profit organisation of supporters, committed to strengthening the voice of supporters in the decision-making process at Peterborough United Football Club. We seek to improve the links between the club and the community it serves, and help the club to grow to the highest level. OUR AIMS To bring Peterborough United Football Club, Posh fans and the local community closer together. To help disadvantaged and deserving fans to go to a match for free under the "Smile Ticket" scheme. To help the football club by increasing the Posh fan base through our "New Posh Fans Initiative." To support football related activities locally through sponsorship and donations whenever possible. To have a substantial membership in order to represent the views of fans at meetings with the football club and to promote their interests. To have a Supporters' Trust representative on the board of the football club representing the interests of all fans. To build up funds to support our activities and create a reserve to help the club in the longer term in the event of a crisis. Help Us to Help You! Become a member – subscription details on the back pages. Make a donation to the Trust. (pay-pal facility on website www.theposhtrust.co.uk) Join the Gold Bond Weekly Draw! And receive your Membership for FREE! Use your membership card at the local businesses that provide excellent discounts to members Shop at Westgate Department Stores, AHF Home Furnishing Superstores and Westgate Optical, asking for the dividend to be credited to the Trust’s share number 473432. Visit and support our Stall on the concourse on match days! Browse our merchandise including various books and magazines. Join or re-new your membership, and take part in the various competitions we will feature. Offer your services to the Trust, if you have any professional or other skills, e g in fund-raising, accountancy, business management, the law etc. Make use of our on-line shopping facility, www.spendandraise.com/theposhtrust/ Website: www.theposhtrust.co.uk E-mail: [email protected] We thank all those who continue to support the Trust, however they do it. Published by The Posh Supporters’ Trust, 193 Oakdale Ave, Stanground, Peterboro. PE2 8TH. Printed by Printing Matters, Unit 12c, Brookside Industrial Estate, Sawtry, Cambs. PE28 5SB CHAIRMANS MESSAGE Welcome to our latest newsletter, and may I wish you a ’Happy New Season’. Well they did it for us! A very BIG thank-you to everyone at the Posh who defied the bookmakers’ odds and with pride, comfortably retained our Championship status. In this newsletter, we have provided an individual brief on all the current players that will spearhead our 2012 / 2013 campaign to prove the bookies wrong once again. Our 10th AGM will take place at The Cherry Tree, on Monday 22 October and we hope you will join us on the night. Our patron Tommy Robson, will be in attendance, and Bob Symns will also be present to tell us about the latest developments at London Road, and answer your questions on anything Posh. Finally, the evening will conclude with a traditional Posh Quiz from Mick Robinson. The Trust is at the Beer Festival again this year with our road-show for your perusal. We will have a selection of Posh shop merchandise available for you to browse. You can renew your membership, join as a new member or simply “Talk POSH” so come along and introduce yourself, buy me a pint or just simply say Hello! We are planning to implement our next New Posh Fans’ Initiative for games during Oct and Nov 2012. Delivering leaflets on Sun 23 Sept within the City, we urgently need volunteers to join us on the morning to help with the distribution. Can You Help? Parking at London Rd? With the adjacent housing development and the imminent building work for the new stand, there are no parking spaces available for supporters at the stadium. There are a few Blue Badge parking spaces available on a first come basis. The football club, in partnership with The Helping Hand Group, run a Park and Ride scheme for disabled supporters. This free service, allows fans to park approximately two miles from the stadium, and be transported to the football ground for arrival about one hour before kick-off. You will be taken back to the centre following the final whistle. Fans wishing to use the service need to book in advance through the Ticket Office at London Road or online at www.theposhtickets.com. Bookings are made on a first come basis and include travel for one Carer. If you require transport for additional family/friend members, please contact [email protected] in advance. Hope to see you at the Beer Festival and Our AGM. Up The POSH ! Barry Trust Member Andrew Wintersgill has written a book available now as a kindle edition from Amazon. Andrew, who has been a Posh supporters for 50 years, has written a Fans eye view of the beautiful game celebrated in verse. It is a collection of over a 100 football based poems covering the whole spectrum of the game its many wide and varied aspects from a grass-roots fans perspective. Obviously the London Road influence is not far away! The highs and lows, the joy and tears the changes and turmoil of the last 50 years. Priced at only £2.52 its well worth a read. ‘Posh’ are the Greatest! ………… but which team should we most want to emulate? When Darragh MacAnthony was asked (by this writer as it happens) at his recent book launch at London Rd, which club he most admired in terms of its achievement in going up the leagues, his answer was Swansea City. He said this was because of both the low league position they had come from to reach the ultimate goal of the Premiership, and the way they played football. As a supporters’ trust member there couldn’t have been a better answer. Swansea City are a shining example of how a club should be run and it has done it the hard way by coming from the brink of relegation to the Football Conference as recently as 2002/3, with a necessary win on the very last day of the season. It also came back from the brink of going out of business two years before that when the Australian businessman Tony Petty, who owned an Aussie Rules football team, caused complete turmoil at the club after he bought it in 2001. As a result the Swan’s Trust was formed and it was the Trust which led the effort to put together a consortium which eventually bought the club from him. On the way to doing that, the Trust raised in excess of £50,000 and ended up with a 20% stake in the football club and a director on the board, a situation which has extended to the present day. The fans had rescued the club. The paths of the two clubs have crossed on many occasions, most famously in 1965 when, with Posh’s highest home gate ever, 30,096 were present at London Road in February 1965 for the FA Cup 5th round tie after Posh had knocked out Arsenal in round four. Although the match was drawn, Posh won the replay and went on to lose gallantly at Chelsea in the 6th round. Swansea had dire times in the early 1970’s having their lowest home league gate of just 1,358 in the 1974-1975 season and in the following campaign hit what older fans will recognise as the ultimate football ignominy – applying for re-election to the Football League. In recent years of course, Swansea have gone from strength to strength building the new 20,000 seat capacity Liberty stadium in conjunction with the council, and developing the same free flowing football style under successful managers Roberto Martinez and Brendan Rogers that Darren Ferguson has brought to Posh. All this has been done without spending silly money on bringing in players or on paying excessive wages, at least by Championship and Premier League standards. In their last Championship season they spent just £1.7m on players of which £500,000 was a brilliant investment in Scott Sinclair. Swansea City has also brought on its own players with Joe Allen, who has been associated with the club from the age of nine, now rumored to be on the verge of a £15m move to Liverpool. But apart from showing how a club can successfully rise up the leagues by being well run and playing good football without spending a king’s ransom, it should also be noted that Swansea City have managed it with a population catchment area for fans of around 230,000.