'LOVE BITES AND EVERYTHING!'

I was lucky enough to be able to get away for a couple of weeks holiday recently where I could reflect on the world in general and Bath City FC in particular.

Whilst Britain has its problems.....a slow emergence form a 5 year recession, record youth unemployment, the third most unequal nation on earth,squeezed living standards for most people and a welfare state that is being rapidly dismantled....it still has some great things not least football and good beer! I was reminded of this when I landed at Manchester airport and the taxi driver wanted to talk about Manchester City. We had the obligatory exchange about Tony Book and how he had carried the Premier League Trophy on to the pitch at the Etihad stadium fully 43 years after he had captained Manchester City to its last Championship success.

The driver enthused about the final moments of the win over QPR which secured the title in 2012. When City scored there was the usual mass hug which was described eloquently by Paul Merson on radio as 'Love bites and everything'.

 Football has a habit of coming up with these great moments of humour! Manchester City fans now have  banner which proclaims this!

The last time Bath City had such a moment was at Yate in 2007 though the FA Cup win at Grimsby and the win over Woking to secure the Conference Premier place in 2010 were pretty special.

But back to this season and our City has secured a good position in the early season table with the emphatic win over newcomers Concord Rangers. Ross Stearn was very impressive - a pity his goals were not caught on film. With a game in hand City can strike for a top 5 place within the next 2/3 weeks.This Saturday's visit to Ebbsfleet followed by the game at home to Tonbridge Angels and then a trip to Staines, give us ample opportunity to rise further up the table.

In last week's piece I argued that Bath City should be more open as a Club. Yes there are commercial confidentialities, not least player's wages and the like, but as a community interest company City's mission is to deliver football for the people of Bath and its surrounds. Fans are not just consumers of a football product. Many have a real stake in it as a social focus. We want it to survive and prosper and the best way to achieve that is to involve the stakeholders - the fans - in as open a way as possible. Bath City FC is not the local newsagent. It has a 'not for profit' objective though it absolutely has to be commercial and efficient in the way it achieves that goal. Unlike the newsagent who will pocket the profit, City will plough it back in to deliver better football. Well at least that's the theory!

At the moment we can guess that debts are rising and income is falling as costs also rise. But we don't know because we have a Club that effectively excludes it's fan's from all this.

For those that say we should just let the Chairman and Board get on with it I have to profoundly disagree. It's our Club and we want it to survive. We want to know that is being managed well. The Chairman is the custodian of the Club for the fans and the people of Bath. I am sure that this is not how the current Chairman sees it though.

What is worrying is that early season Saturday attendances have been so low. There appear to be a lot of initiatives to promote the Club but as yet they don't appear to be working.

Speaking of initiatives, the Chairman's claim that the wearing of the away kit for the Gosport home game was a deliberate 'showcasing' of the away kit was met with some derision on social media. Given that Bishop's Stortford and then Eastleigh had complained about the home kit clashing with the referees uniform, was the Chairman's claim a crude attempt to cover up for an administrative error? That's how it appeared to some!

I'll be there for the next home game against Tonbridge on 14th September but as a measure of how the Club's popularity has fallen, I'll be there alone as many of my group no longer attend. We need to win people back to the football Club and I don't think the current leadership is doing what's needed to achieve that.