Been thinking about Islay's comments about DFCSS and "stirring it up" and also the rubbish posted about hospitality etc sp thought i'd take time (just landed back in Amsterdam from Korea and got time to kill) to explain a few things.
I'm a Dee4Lifer...in that I firmly believe the future of Dundee FC is directly linked to the fans of the Club, their Club. That does not mean I want fans to run the Club, nor do I imply that I don't. For me, at any given time, the Club should be run by whoever can run it best, has the means to make the team successful and who combines this with the other demands of a provincial football club, namely that it engages with the fans, doesn't just treat them as customers and values the fact that they turn up week after week paying hard earned money because they love the Club.
Theres hardly a football club in Scotland outside the Old firm that hasn't relied on benefactors at one time or another, and there's hardly a club that has escaped having bad ownership at one time or another. There are too many professional clubs, too few people going to games and way too much English or foreign games on TV that frankly show up Scottish football as an abysmal entertainment package. Something has to change but I don't think that means we keep moving toward the sterile environment we see at Dens or elsewhere. Football is a working mans game all over the world but it is being taken away by large corporations with a desire to package the game as some kind of sporting theatre only suitable for those with the means to pay high ticket prices, ridiculously high prices for polyester t shirts and who want cushions on their seats and ear plugs to keep the noise down.
Fan ownership can work if it's like Germany with its inbuilt fan protections but who also have huge cities with huge crowds to support that model. It cannot work at top level football on crowds of 4000. It can also work in Germany as fans are encouraged to fervently support their teams, noisily and with colour. We are the exact opposite where passion and fervour are smothered by bureaucratic imbeciles determined to pander to the middle class notion of football but who fail to see there aren't enough cushion sitters to keep the crowds coming to Dens.
When DFCSS took control of the Club it wasn't a disaster, what was a disaster was the internal workings of DFCSS that allowed incapable people to rise to the very top and even be Chairman of our Club when they hadn't the skills, experience or potential ability to do a good job.
The system was too easily manipulated by anyone with a fantasy desire to sit at the table and that can be seen from some of the people involved. The vast majority of Dee4Life members were honest Dundee fans who wanted to help their Club, a smaller number were dedicated volunteers who wanted the same and a smaller number still were position chasing shysters. In Dundee this is not a situation that is unusual, most workplaces or union groups or societies of any kind have seen it before, in the case of DFCSS there was simply no protection against a small group of people doing what they wanted to do from time to time.
For my own part I will continue to point out when things are factually incorrect or being misinterpreted in some way for some other reason, this does not make me anti DFCSS it makes me anti anyone that would do harm to our Club. I respected plenty of guys who did their best at Dee4life or DFCSS, people like Scott Glenday or Graeme Smith or Alex Kidd but I will also vehemently oppose the likes of Stuart Murphy, Fraser McDonald or Dave Forbes who were either out of their depth, deranged or fraudulent individuals.
I don't know too much about the current goings on between FPS and DFCSS as i try to keep out of it, on the other hand I do have an inside knowledge of how things work that has been offered to DFCSS on several occasions but rejected every time. One or two Society individuals got in touch over the years to say they'd welcome that input but whenever it came to a committee the chancers won the day and my help was rejected. We'll never know if it could have been useful to them or not.
Fans representation on the Club Board has become tokenism, it's nice to say we're represented but in actuality we are not. At this time DFCSS would be better off as a lobbying group who could be asking questions about the treatment of people in the Derry, the mess of the stairs, the new stadium plans, etc. They could still be the voice of the fans if they decided to do so. That they are not is their own fault.