Ladies and gents, this is a chairman I like

[CroJack]

Trevor Birch:

"Firstly, I’m pleased to announce that the club will be holding a Fans' Forum at the Liberty Stadium on Thursday, July 11 from 7pm-9pm.

It will be my first Fans' Forum and I’m looking forward to meeting those supporters in attendance and answering as many questions as openly and honestly as I can.

New head coach Steve Cooper will be joining me, together with one or two other club representatives, for an event I’m told has proved extremely popular in the past."

"I’m a firm believer in trying to communicate with our supporters wherever and whenever possible. The football club plays a huge role in the community and I will try to listen and implement suggestions that will bring us all closer together and improve the club for all.

For example, I want to build on our current fan focus groups which cover the likes of community, charity, digital, stadium experience and customer service. We need additional and finely focused groups that cover all areas of our operations where we can call on the help, suggestions and advice from our supporters who may be experts in their own business fields in these areas on a daily basis.

Football clubs can be insular and fail to capitalise on the knowledge and expertise that exists within its own loyal fanbase and I want to make sure we can all play a part in making Swansea City the very best it can be."

"In the meantime, I look forward to meeting as many supporters as I can on Thursday at the Fans' Forum.

I’m sure you’ll treat me gently!"

Read more here:

Update from the chairman | Swansea City FC

 

[Jackflash]

Not impressed at all, if our part time chairman thinks the attendance will be there to discuss the itemised list he's put forward then he's in for a rough ride. One can sympathise with him to some extent, as he's going to take the flack that would normally be directed at the Yanks. Fans are going to want to know about plans to take the club forward, He says the next vital step is appointing a head of recruitment, nothing vital about that as there's no money in the club to buy anyone.
Community, Charity, Digital, Stadium Experience, Customer Service, these are by no means focal points of the greatest interest to the clubs welfare at the moment. Fans will want to know what can be done about reversing the cash flow that's been happening over the last couple of years, but sadly they'll get no answer to questions like that.

 

[Yankee_Jack]

On the one hand, if Birch drives these communication channels then he is going to make the Trust irrelevant. If he can face and frankly respond to the inevitable WTF questions about cash flows (as in where did it all go), transfer policy, and the mission he is operating under (e.g. become a Prem club, or stay a middling but financially viable Championship club, etc) then part-time or full-time, he is going to garner reputation and respect. His ability to explain his mission and then execute to it is going to go a long way to placate supporters and keep the owners quiet and out of the way. The more he does this, the greater latitude to operate he will acquire.

Let's face the owners, for better or for worse, bought a pig-in-a-poke from HJ. They paid approx 40% (+/-) discount to annual revenue for the business. The value of the business today is some significant amount less than they paid for it ... has to be. The revenue they are budgeting against now is a fraction of what they thought they were going to experience in the Prem ... and therefore their potential profit is a small fraction of the potential that the Club had whilst in the Prem.

HJ had made utterly disastrous football / business decisions at the time of the sale; jeopardized the sale through his apparent misconduct with respect to governance requirements, and obviously sold himself as the font of all knowledge football. Little did the new owners realize how much shit they were swallowing ... and while their naivete didn't help when they attempted to put their hands on the joy stick of a nose diving plane, the downward spiral had already been cast in concrete and in retrospect it would have taken some savvy folks indeed to unwind HJ's fuck-ups and save the day.

At the end HJ was a drowning rat trying anything and everything to save his own rear end never mind the clubs .... although the real story about James going to Leeds in January would be an interesting tale. Perhaps this is one question that Birch should be asked. His answer, open or closed, would cast a light on a lot of things.