Please Take Care of our Environment Recycle this Newsletter if 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 39 August 2013 Notification of our 11th Annual General Meeting and Board Member Nominations. The Peterborough United Squad for 2013/14 At Last! Stadium Development is GO! Pete’s ‘Memory’ Lane, 1973 / 74 season. A National Trophy for Peterborough United ‘Best Away Day’ Award 2012/13 Visit our 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 Directors : Ray Cole, Tony Griffin, Keith Jennings, Paul Little, Walter Moore. John Lawrence. Consultant Peter Lloyd. 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 Mission : 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, Peterborough. PE2 8TH. Printed by Printing Matters, Unit 12c, Brookside Industrial Estate, Sawtry, Cambs. PE28 5SB CHAIRMANS MESSAGE, Welcome to our latest newsletter, Firstly, I’m sure you will all join me in wishing George Boyd and Dwight Gale every success in the Premiership. Having finished last season as one of the best teams in the Championship, we all felt the bitter disappointment to be relegated having accumulated 54 points. But that’s now in the history books, and we embark upon the new campaign with renewed optimism and a very talented squad of players that can take us back to Championship at the first attempt! Within this newsletter is your notification of our AGM on 10 October, There are several vacancies for Members to join the Trust Board and help us to achieve our aims and objectives. We do need to recruit some younger members, both male and female onto the Board to ensure we represent all age groups and supporters opinions. ( EMail Me for info ) After much negotiation the final piece of the jigsaw has finally been agreed between the Football Club and the City Council on the development of London Rd. At an extraordinary meeting of the full council on 31 July, Councillors approved a budget of £1million to retrofit the London Rd end after the completion of the new Moys End project. Following this approval, both the Club and the Council leaders have agreed a new 25 year lease and the option for the football club to purchase the stadium anytime in the first 10 years. There are many other features in this newsletter, some of them nostalgic, some of them quite concerning over the way football supporters and their clubs are being treated. Enjoy the read. Up The POSH ! Barry Supporters Direct Statement --- Coventry City --- 3rd August 2013 Supporters Direct notes the decision by The Football League to grant a transfer of membership of Coventry City Football Club to SISU [Otium] with a ten point deduction. This follows their earlier decision to grant the club permission to play their games outside of the City of Coventry. It is a sad day indeed when a club can be moved away from its community, its owners can wipe out debts and can act with such disdain for its fans and the people of the city that have sustained in for the last 130 years, and these actions can be sanctioned by the authorities who are supposed to protect the game’s wider interests. It is hard to think of a clearer example of the failings of governance and leadership that continue to riddle our national game. The policy upon which this decision was based is not even published. On a day (2nd August) when the football authorities were originally supposed to report to the Minister for Sport on the steps they have taken to reform the way the game is regulated, the irony could not be more telling, and another historic club is eviscerated. We will continue to work with the Sky Blue Trust, and support them in every way possible to ensure that in its 130th year, the City of Coventry can have a Club that bears its name, and of which it can be proud. Football fans deserve better, and we will continue to campaign for the kind of regulation that the game so desperately needs, and which fans, politicians and so many others are united in calling for. End Posh CEO Bob Symns among the speakers at Supporters Summit Hosted by Supporters Direct and The Football Supporters Federation. It may be hard to find if you are driving there but the FA’s new home of football at St George’s Park near Burton on Trent is not lacking in facilities, and has the atmosphere of a place that is both intensely relaxing and a venue for hard work. The main training pitch has identical grass to that at Wembley stadium and is exactly the same size. All this is designed to make England’s football team as well prepared as possible to compete at Wembley in the big matches. There is even a full size indoor pitch with artificial grass to allow all weather training. At the summit, Bob Symns was speaking at a session on “safe standing,” a campaign for the trialling, approval and installation in grounds of safe rail seats which can be pushed up to allow standing. This would allow clubs to increase their spectator capacity, have more flexible ticket pricing, and help create the better atmosphere that standing areas have traditionally given at matches. Bob is a passionate advocate of “safe standing” and we can only hope that the fact that it is relatively cheap to install, should add 80% capacity to the equivalent seating and seems completely safe means that there is a chance we might have it installed in a re-designed London Rd End at Posh. He was speaking on the same platform as Paul Faulkner the CEO of Aston Villa who is keen to have a trial of the rail seats at Villa Park and is not afraid to publicly support trialling Posh have been at the heart of the campaign effort, (which is led by the Football Supporters Federation), for some time now following presentations to Bob Symns from the Posh Supporters Trust, and a trip to Hannover in Germany to visit the city’s Bundesliga football club Hannover 96. The object of the visit was to see firsthand the ‘rail seat’ system which is used extensively throughout Germany where supporters have the choice of whether to sit or stand. Paul Froggitt of The Posh Supporters Trust was instrumental in bringing the safe standing road show demonstration to London Rd on 17 Sept 2011. Although there are many clubs who have publicly stated that they are in favour of trials there are many more who do support it but are reluctant to say so, whilst the Premier League in the form of its boss Richard Scudamore is opposed. The Football League is warming to the idea following a majority of its members voting to trial the rail seating, however some of the safety organisations and police are still opposed - although some are wavering. The Supporters summit was organised by Supporters Direct and the Football Supporters Federation. There were hundreds of fans attending who witnessed a speech from the outgoing FA chairman David Bernstein in which he regretted not being able to improve governance in football as fast as he would have wished.