Introduction to the Blades Independent Fans Forum & Chinese visit to BDTBL

All advertisments are hidden for logged in members, why not log in/register?

Linz

Administrator
Staff member
Joined
Aug 8, 2006
Messages
20,717
Reaction score
19,119
Location
Sunny S8
As some of you will have been aware, Foxy and myself weren't present at the Golden Lion on Saturday.

IMG_6074.jpg

Saturday’s game against Burnley marked the start of Kick It Out’s “One Game One
Community” weeks of action and to reinforce the message that Sheffield United welcomes football fans from all areas of Sheffield society and beyond, there were some very special visitors to Bramall Lane. Building on already strong links with the Chinese business world, Sheffield United, along with the City Council and both Sheffield Universities are supporting the Sheffield Chinese Entrepreneurs and Professionals Association (SCEPA) which aims to help Chinese students and business people integrate into Sheffield life as well as celebrating and promoting Chinese culture here in the UK.

As part of this, over 150 Chinese students were invited to Bramall Lane as guests of SCEPA and Sheffield United and to show that this is a club with roots very much in Sheffield, representatives from the Blades Independent Fans Forum (BIFF) were invited to become involved as ambassadors of the club to add to their experience. We assisted with the tours around the ground as well as answering the students’ many questions about our experiences of English football. Many were already aware of the club through our links in Chengdu and helped United celebrate Chengdu’s promotion back into the Chinese Super League.

IMG_6069.jpg

Despite being vastly outnumbered and it being a complete change to our normal match day rituals (which usually involve being in the pub, not in our “smart-casual” wear!) the tours went without a hitch and eventually, all the students were escorted into the upper tier and seemed delighted by the six goals they witnessed. I may be biased, but their standing ovation seems to indicate that they particularly enjoyed our third!

We’d like to thank the club for the opportunity to get involved and we hope that the Chinese guests left with a positive impression of our friendly, family club.

Who are B.I.F.F.?


biff.jpg

The Blades Independent Fans Forum was formed in August 2009 following a mixed fan experience during the Blades pre season tour to Hungary. The group's founder and Chairman Stuart Drew commented:

“Instead of venting my spleen, which seems the most popular way on the many football websites, Football Heaven etc., I decided to pose the question to Kevin McCabe during his first question and answer session held at SUFC in August 2009.
The question was: 'What was his perception of fan customer service following United away and especially abroad?'

His response was hopefully a good one where the fans felt there was always a Blades official (especially abroad) on hand to assist and resolve any issues. When I stated that in our case, this was not what we experienced, Kevin immediately promised to rectify this and after my question sent one of his Directors over to discuss further.

We had several more discussions and it became clear that the link between United and the fans maybe wasn’t as strong as was first thought.

With this in mind, I was asked if I could rectify this by forming a Fans Forum, I took up the challenge and pulled together a group of Blades from all walks of life who would be able to present to United Operations teams on a regular basis issues experienced by fans when following or dealing with United, whether it be a ticketing issue, catering, commercial or superstore. This is conducted in a structured and professional manner with minutes taken and agreed actions written. We do not cover on field or playing issues but everything else.

Going forward, I would like to reach a wider audience which is where S24SU.com comes in. Linz & Foxy have recently joined the Fans Forum and have expressed an interest in relaying certain key information from the meetings with United via this forum and this will be good for two reasons.

1) To enable members of S24SU.com to benefit from viewing dialogue between United and BIFF which may concern them as fans and

2) To enable members to inform us of any issues they may have we can take up with United on their behalf.

I welcome your thoughts, good or bad and hopefully BIFF and S24SU.com together, we can represent a larger proportion of our fan base and have a positive impact on the fan experience following United which we all know at times can involve more lows than highs!

Thanks, Stuart

Message from Linz & Foxy

Just to add a little to what Stuart's said. Quite often, we've read of fans' frustrations about a lack of clarity on certain issues coming out of the club. We've worked hard, in our unofficial capacity, to try and keep as many fans as possible in the loop with the information coming out of the club by publicising events such as the Q&A sessions and filling in the gaps the club, for some reason, seemed reluctant to fill.

This put our heads above the parapet, as it were, and brought you lot as forum members and us into the spotlight. We've always encouraged reasoned debate on here and it's paid dividends with regards to our reputation as a whole and we must thank you all for the that because, as a site, it now means that we all now have the opportunity to put our points forward and have them listened to in perhaps a clearer channel of communication than was available before as well as receive more insight into the club. You may have seen that Foxy was able to go to the press conference when Gary Speed was announced as manager. We hope that was just the start.

I just want to reassure all our members that we wear our badge as an "independent" forum with pride which means as far as the running of this place is concerned, it's business as usual. We don't have to look too far to see what disasters can happen when club officials start meddling with internet forums!

Nor do Foxy and I claim to speak for any of you. Every fan has a different opinion about certain aspects. However, as we do with the forum, we can provide a means to get the questions out there but unlike the forum, you just might receive a sensible answer ;)

There may be a few new features and sections added to the forum make it easier for fans who perhaps aren't members to contact us and BIFF with their comments and also a return of the news sections so that everything is easy to find.

I hope this explains a little of why Foxy and I have been less visible on the forum for the last couple of weeks because we've been busy in the background trying to ensure that we can bring more opportunities to you all. Hopefully within the next week or two, we'll be fully up and running with regards to gathering input and questions from fans and we'll start to see some results (and some on the pitch would be nice too!)

Cheers chaps!
 

You're hard work and generosity knows no limits at all.

I'm sure everyone will express their gratitude for it, but I for one am very grateful for the hard work you and Foxy put in to this for everyone concerned with this site, so thank you!

---------- Post added at 01:33 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:32 PM ----------

On a separate note, why can't we have a kit like Chengdu's?!
 
So Basically after reading through the lines,

This is the Bridge that's been missing for communication between the Fans and the Board room, Yes?

Sounds spot-on to me ;)
 
That cake looks a bit micey ;-)
 
Further to this, the guy in the top picture on the right has some interesting plans for Sheffield. It would be good if it came off :)
 
I think that this is great. After the recent Q&A (post Speed appointment) Trevor Birch was saying afterwards how successful it had been and how it was worth repeating. I raised a point with him that something that does focus on the reality of the club's finances either in writing or as a forum event would be useful to stop the mis-interpretation and conjecture over the club's financial position.

The club seems more switched on to dealing with the fans in a constructive manner and let's hope it develops.

One thing i would say is that it appears that BIFF has been running for over a year with very little publicity. It is certainly something that I would like to get involved in, yet until now I hadn't heard about it from either the club or BIFF themselves. I hope that I can contribute in some way in the future. :thumbup:

UTB!
 
It was great to see so many happy enthusiastic faces up in the Blut on Saturday instead of the usual moaning bleeders. Maybe some people should remember its a sport.
 
We don't have to look too far to see what disasters can happen when club officials start meddling with internet forums!

Absolutely, McCabe shut the Official Forum down when it didn`t suit him.

Leopards, Spots and all that.

Stick all his pronouncments in a special section, and passworded (on request) like the Pig & Truffle.

Nice to see "special" people at the Lane, maybe McCabes New Section should be in Manderin ......... so the "ordinary" cant read it
 
Good work S2 4SU. I am pleased that communication channels at our club are open and we have a channel such as this unlike many other clubs, I would suspect.
 
Absolutely, McCabe shut the Official Forum down when it didn`t suit him.

I think Linz was referring to the pigs 'independent' forum. BU was shut down because the webmaster had had enough of the hassle of running an internet forum. That was the official line anyway.
 
I think Linz was referring to the pigs 'independent' forum. BU was shut down because the webmaster had had enough of the hassle of running an internet forum. That was the official line anyway.

Indeed I was.

And while there were plenty of conspiracies around the closure of BU, I do think they are just that.

The club have been working with BIFF and we've been asked to get on board to widen the pool of input as well as get info flowing the other way.

I understand some people may be cynical, but all I can say is raise your concerns and give people a chance to respond.
 
Indeed I was.

Yes, I know you were :) while totally disregarding McCabes record on Internet Forums, which is why I mentioned it.

Maybe the Chinese told him to switch it off, they do that you know :rolleyes:

I had to smile when out the blue, a competition ran on this site for match tickets, thats odd I thought.

No it isnt :(
 

I had to smile when out the blue, a competition ran on this site for match tickets, thats odd I thought.

No it isnt :(

I'm actually quite offended by your suggestion.

I'm more than happy for you to come round and verify the source of the tickets if you wish?

I was approached by a marketing company called Pitch who work on behalf of 188bet.

One of the reasons I agreed to do this and structured it in the way we have was to give people who perhaps wouldn't normally have been able to attend the match (who maybe can't afford modern football) an opportunity to see the Blades.

It does absolutely nothing for me or the site other than cost me time and money to implement.

The only time the club have anything to do with this competition is when 188Bet/Pitch give them your name to reserve the tickets for you.
 
:clap::clap::clap::clap: Bravo foxy, glad you hit back at unfounded suggestions, there are some people on every forum believe they "know" the truth without really understanding the facts of how difficult and tedious keeping something like this forum as neutral as possible, without allowing the soapbox brigade to completly undermine the validity of the true fans discussions.
as for the ticket contest, personally i think it is a great idea and an extension of the bridge building between this forum and SUFC, as we are kinda involved with an blades official sponsor, this can only be good for the forum specifically and the fans of SUFC generally, because to my mind it shows a certain trust and may just open doors that were closed down at BDTBL, and just maybe mcCabe n co may allow further dialogue with S24SU in the future.
continue with the great way you guys are running this place.
as i suggested in another thread, maybe this tenttive partnership could lead to direct chat with players and other staff actually on this forum
UTB
MunXy
 
I think some people are insistent on seeing men hiding behind grassy knolls which just aren't there.

With regards to the forum, we know that people from the club are reading. We're hardly a closed shop are we? And it would be daft for them to pass up an easy opportunity to gauge the mood of the fans. But there has never been any pressure on Foxy and myself to moderate this forum along "party lines" and we have specifically stated that unless this continues to be the case, we will happily step away from this "working partnership", for want of a better phrase.

The only gripes we've ever had have been from bloody Sheffield Wednesday busybodies who, as of last contact, were told to Foxtrot Oscar.

As for Bladesunited, has there ever been any confirmation other than rumours and conspiracies that the "party line" was not indeed correct? Webbo was and still is, employed by the club to run their online operations and moderating BU as an official forum took up a lot of time and effort which probably should have been spent elsewhere. He was basically being paid by the club to babysit so you can see why he and the club would get a bit pissy about this when trying to streamline staff costs as much as possible.

Foxy and I can spend slightly less time pouring over ever detail of the forum because we're unofficial and we can be more lax and allow things like swearing, links to other sites etc and frankly, we don't get paid anyway!

So, pray tell. Beyond being a bit sore about the closure of Bladesunited, so you actually have any proof of "McCabe's record on internet forums" beyond stuff that's like... made up?

As for the competition, what Foxy says is the truth. We were approached by a PR company employed by 188Bet for the same reason the club want to work with us - We're a fairly sensible, reasonably large and very well-read forum for Sheffield United fans.

To insinuate that we've sold our souls to be the mouthpiece of some kind of clandestine New World Order of Sheffield United is frankly ridiculous and as Foxy says, insulting.
 
I saw this the other day, but thought it was just for info rather than being a discussion.

All of this looks great, for those that don't know them I've met both Foxy and Linz at the matches and both seem reasonable down to earth individuals so its an endorsement in itself that they're both on board with BIFF.

My only concern would be that BIFF remains just as described and doesn't become an RMT type group which is claiming to act on behalf of the fans, but actually has its own agenda...We have seen these groups and how they operate at S6. But like I said above, I don't believe this is the the case.

Looked at the stuff on 'SCEPA' (on the projector in the background on the top pic), website below.

http://www.scepa.org.uk/Events%202010/default.html

Not sure what KLM/ Air France's role was/is unless they just flew the chinese participants in as they fly direct to Chengdu.

Keep up the good work and if you need any support, then let me know.
 
I had to smile when out the blue, a competition ran on this site for match tickets, thats odd I thought.

No it isnt :(

So rather than applaud and be grateful for Foxy's hard work, you try and ruin it for everyone else. Wonder if you had the cheek to enter as well?
 
Further to this, the guy in the top picture on the right has some interesting plans for Sheffield. It would be good if it came off :)

You sure it's not Peter Mandelson squeezing a wet one out?
 
So what happens now?
 
Next meeting isn't until January and as announced yesterday at the AGM, Simon Argall is leaving at the end of the year.

As ever, if anyone wants anything raising at the next meeting, email [email protected]

So whats the deal then Linz? Was Argall the link to the club?

And out of interest were you at the AGM alongside BIFF or separately, i'm not quite sure what the link is between the club and S24su.com/ BIFF

Its not a dig, i'm just interested to know as BIFF are quite quiet
 
So whats the deal then Linz? Was Argall the link to the club?

Argall was the ops director and as BIFF deals with matchday experience, he was the main guy the group dealt with. We have been told who the replacement is and BIFF have said that nothing is changing with regards to access to the club. The next meeting was scheduled for 11th January at the last meeting.

Foxy and I have also been introduced separately to the new bloke but not sure we can say who it is yet :) I'll let the club make the announcement.

And out of interest were you at the AGM alongside BIFF or separately, i'm not quite sure what the link is between the club and S24su.com/ BIFF

BIFF as a group weren't at the AGM, not sure if they were invited or not. Foxy and I were invited to the AGM by SUFC's communications consultant who I think we can say we hope to have a lot to do with over the next few months.

Foxy and I sit on the BIFF group as S24SU.com. There are also representatives from Blades Mad and a few other fan groups coming together under the BIFF umbrella.

Its not a dig, i'm just interested to know as BIFF are quite quiet

I think on-the-field matters have taken precedence at the minute for SUFC and quite rightly so and like I said, the meetings seem to be scheduled quarterly which is why you haven't heard much.

Nearer the meeting, a reminder will go out to all we can reach asking for any issues they'd like raising.
 
I think on-the-field matters have taken precedence at the minute for SUFC and quite rightly so and like I said, the meetings seem to be scheduled quarterly which is why you haven't heard much.

Nearer the meeting, a reminder will go out to all we can reach asking for any issues they'd like raising.

Thanks Linz, greatly appreciated like I said I was interested as to why they'd been so quiet, but they don't seem to have much of a presence yet but then again that could also be part of the changes at United.

I would've thought that the club/ BIFF would've been more vocal at this time to take attention away from the Hotel/ McCabe/ Speed etc...

I'd also have expected more feedback about the "flag day" which was clearly a massive failure, as was the "singing section" (pre BIFF days)

As for on field matters, i'm sure these things can run in parallel to the fans and the matchday experience.
 

All advertisments are hidden for logged in members, why not log in/register?

All advertisments are hidden for logged in members, why not log in/register?

Back
Top Bottom