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Former RamZone writer Steve Tickle died very suddenly recently. He wrote the 'Tickle Tackle' column for RamZone for many years and was also one of the founding members of RamsTrust and served as trust Webmaster from 2002 until his death on 12th November.
Here the former webmaster Arild Sand, his great friend Elaine Dean and current webmaster Dan Sewart pay tribute.
It is the supporters' trust FOR Derby County and is all about football governance and responsible ownership. Derby has had some very irresponsible owners in the recent past and had it not been for the supporters' trust it might be that Derby would find themselves in the position that Coventry City were in ie owned by Sisu.
It is no more to do with egos than the supporters' clubs structure - it is about promoting democracy within football and fans having a say in how their clubs are run.
Barcelona is the highest profile club run by a trust and many clubs in Germany and Spain are now owned by fans. In the UK, Portsmouth, Telford Utd, FC Utd and AFC Wimbledon are examples of fan owned clubs.
It is a growing movement designed to make a more level playing field.
Clubs like Chelsea, Manchester C etc all fielding foreign players and paying zillions for those players are not helping the English national game and they are buying their way to titles and trophies. That isn't right.
You can join the trust and play your part in responsible fan ownership and making clubs a part of their own community.
RamsTrust held its Annual General Meeting on Wednesday 17th September at the Derby Co-operative Bowls and Social Club, Taverners Crescent, Littleover.
Members congratulated board member Tony Beck on all the work to have both the Ipro Stadium and Moor Farm Training Ground listed as Assets of Community Value. Congratulations were also offered to Elaine Dean who has been elected Vice Chair of Supporters Direct and Malcolm Turner who has been elected to the Supporters Direct board.
Tony Beck, Elaine Dean, Pete Drew and Jim Wheeler were elected to the board.
After the AGM the board elected the following officers and made three co-options:--
Chair: James Wheeler Vice Chair: Elaine Dean Secretary: Tanya Noon Treasurer: Pete Drew
Other elected board members: John Banks Tony Beck, Jim Coyle Malcolm Turner
Co-opted board members: Bob Donald, Tricia Goodwin, Kevin Hepworth
Webmaster: Steve Tickle
Independent Examiner: Richard Millington (Kidderminster Harriers Trust)
RamsTrust, the supporters trust for Derby County, is delighted to announce that its application to Erewash Borough Council for the Derby County Football Academy and Training Ground at Moor Farm to be declared an Asset of Community Value (ACV) has been successful. The Morley Road site in Chaddesden, Derby, has now been listed in accordance with the Localism Act 2011.
This means that any plans to dispose of the property (other than as a gift, inheritance, mortgage default, insolvency, death, court order or business transfer) will see a moratorium placed on it and RamsTrust will be offered the opportunity to bid for it.
This is the first training ground in the country to be granted ACV status and other trusts are now expected to follow suit.
Robin Osterley, Chief Executive of the trusts' umbrella body, Supporters Direct, said: ‘Supporters Direct is delighted to acknowledge the incredibly hard work of the RamsTrust in getting their training ground listed as an Asset of Community Value. We hope this will set a major precedent for community-based clubs and their trusts, and we looking forward to doing what we can to help this process along”
RamsTrust Chair Jim Wheeler said ' We are very excited about this achievement and setting a precedent for football clubs' training grounds. The Ipro Stadium was successfully listed as an ACV earlier this year and this is a unique double'
*Supporters Direct helps fans to set up democratic co-operatives (known as supporters' trusts) to gain influence in the running and ownership of their clubs.
*SD represents over 200 supporters trusts' and similar organisations England, Scotland and across Europe, with over 600,000 members.
*36 clubs in the UK are majority owned by their supporters including League 2 Clubs Portsmouth, Exeter City, Wycombe Wanderers and AFC Wimbledon.
RamsTrust, the independent supporters trust for Derby County has successfully put in an application for the Ipro Stadium to be declared an Asset of Community Value (ACV) Derby City Council Leader Councillor Paul Bayliss announced today.
The trust has now submitted a further application for Moor Farm training ground to similarly be considered
RAMTRUST APPLIES FOR PRIDE PARK STADIUM AND MOOR FARM TRAINING GROUND TO BE REGISTERED AS 'ASSETS OF COMMUNITY VALUE'
RamsTrust, the Supporters’ Trust for Derby County, announced today that it has submitted a nomination to Derby City Council for the Pride Park Stadium, and Erewash Borough Council for Moor Farm Training Centre, to be registered as ‘Assets of Community Value’ under the Assets of Community Value Regulations of the Localism Act (2011).
The listing of the Stadium as a ‘Community Asset’ by the Council would mean that should the stadium’s current (or any future) owner wanted to sell it, the Derby County Supporter community would have the opportunity to bid for it.
In its nomination to Derby City Council, the Trust set out a number of reasons why the Stadium qualifies as an Asset of Community Value, however the Trust feels the main benefits of obtaining the listing are:
- Reducing the chance that, without prior notice to the Council and community, Derby County Football Club could move to another location.
- Protecting the Stadium’s use as the venue for Derby County Football Club for current and future generations.
- Ensuring it continues as a site for delivering social benefit and community value, through the continued hosting of Derby County matches and the associated community activities Derby County undertakes.
The Councils now have up to eight weeks to make their decisions whether to list the Stadium & Training ground as Assets of Community Value. A successful listing would mean that, should the owner of either of the assets wish to sell they will be required to notify the relevant Council and RamsTrust, who will then have six weeks to lodge a non-binding expression of interest, in which case a window of opportunity of a further four and half months, (making six months in total), will come into effect to delay the sale. The full moratorium period exists to afford community interest groups sufficient time to prepare and raise money to bid for the property, potentially in competition with other interested parties.
Commenting on the application, RamsTrust Chairman, Jim Wheeler said “One of the greatest fears of any football fan is that the club they have supported all their life is suddenly ripped from its traditional heartland and moved to another location. It happened at Wimbledon in the past, numerous non-league clubs and most recently at Coventry City. Such decisions ignore the most important people at any club - its fans.”
“We would like to make it crystal clear that our application would have been submitted regardless of who the current owners of the stadium and training ground were, and that the current ownership had no bearing on the decision”
“We have no reason to believe that GSE has plans to sell the stadium or club, however one day that time will come. Having experienced 3 changes of club ownership since the Trust was formed only 11 years ago, we believe listing the stadium and training ground not only protects them, but also opens up a pathway to dialogue with any new potential owners of the club and infrastructure, so we can seek assurances on their plans.”
Supporters Direct - a society that is owned by its members' Supporters Trusts and Clubs, is advancing a campaign to have Football Club grounds designated as ACVs. RamsTrust is acting in unison with that campaign, as a member of Supporters Direct. Presently 14 club's premises are subject to being ACVs; these include: Manchester United's Old Trafford; Liverpool's Anfield; Ipswich Town's Portman Road; Nuneaton Town's Liberty Way & Oxford United's Kassam Stadium. Other nominations are ongoing, and include Leicester City's Kingpower Stadium & Birmingham City's St.Andrew's.
Eric Pickles, the Communities Secretary said he was “delighted” that Manchester United's Old Trafford premises has been listed, and went on to say: “I look forward to other communities following this wonderful example.” RamsTrust's applications are in accord with those views."
THE WORLD CUP WITH BLOOD ON ITS HANDS From www.twohundredpercent.net
There comes a point at which the rotten core at the heart of football will become too much for most to take. We have come to accept the greed and the avarice as a part of life, as if there is no other way in which these people behave, and we are pacified only, it seems, by the collection of three points on a Saturday afternoon. Perhaps, though, for the corrupt culture that has burrowed its way into FIFA over as many decades as you choose to select from, some sort of day of reckoning is fast approaching.
We all took the awarding of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar as being utterly and hopelessly corrupt to the core, a decision made for dozens of reasons that had little to do with anything but the greasing of palms, and the endless quest to accommodate the tournament up to the point of holding it in the middle of the winter for the first time has done little to satisfy those who have who have already arrived at this conclusion. On the whole, though, the arguments in favour of moving the 2022 World Cup Finals have been dismissed with a sneer by FIFA, Perhaps, though, that situation is about to change.
When misgivings about awarding the 2022 World Cup Finals to a micro-state with no discernable football culture to speak of were first aired in this country, they were dismissed by FIFA as being the jealous whines of a nation that had just lost out on a bid to host the tournament. Never mind that it wasn’t the same tournament as the one that people were expressing these misgivings about. There are enough people out there who blindly hate the British for the likes of Sepp Blatter to be able to easily deflect criticism to an appreciative audience. There is, therefore a certain irony to the fact that the real shame of this tournament has been revealed by a British newspaper. We suspect that this time Blatter will not find it as easy to brush criticisms aside.
It has been The Guardian that has spent much of this exposing the appalling condition that migrants working on the construction of facilities in Qatar which are being built in no small part in preparation for what will doubtlessly be an orgy of opulence in just under nine years time. They found that Nepalese workers have been dying at a rate of almost one a day, whilst workers face exploitation and abuses that amount to modern-day slavery. Further claims have alleged that workers have been denied water whilst working, have had wages withheld to prevent them from leaving Qatar — something made considerably easier by the debt that migrant workers find themselves in just to get there in the first place — whilst the International Trade Union Confederation has claimed that the 2022 World Cup is on course to cost the lives of at least 4000 migrant workers before it starts.
The usual ameliorating platitudes have already been offered by FIFA, who have stated that they are “”very concerned about the reports presented by the media regarding labour rights’ abuses and the conditions for construction workers” (something that they could have found out a little more about had they bothered to look, well, during the bidding process), whilst Qatar’s World Cup organisers have stated they were “appalled” by the Guardian revelations and said there was “no excuse” for the mistreatment of workers, a statement which indicates that they were similarly oblivious to persistent claims regarding exactly this that have been made for some time with regard to the treatment of immigrant workers in their country. After all, more than 700 Indian workers died in Qatar between 2010 and 2012.
Perhaps, though, they only care so much because it has been exposed so publicly. This is, after all, very publicity for the tournament, the governing body and its organisers, and rightly so. But what can we do? The truth of the matter is that FIFA and the tournament organisers could just try and ride this out. After all, it’s still almost nine years before the tournament starts and people’s memories seem to be getting shorter and shorter these days. This, however, doesn’t mean that we should do nothing. Trying to apply pressure to those organising it all would seem to be beyond our reach. The Football Association in this country, however, aren’t, and pressure should be applied for this organisation to actually stick its head above the parapet for once and make it clear they will not tolerate this sort of behaviour in what is ultimately their name.
It may or may not work, but it has to be worth a throw of the dice. The World Cup has a history that will be irrevocably tarnished — and has been before in 1978, when the hosting of the tournament held by a country with a military junta caused outrage, but nowhere near the level of organised global protest that improvements in communications and technology now make possible — by the being associated with this sort of situation. If there is a moment at which push must come to shove, then this, surely should be it. There is no moral argument to make that justifies the conditions in which those desperate enough to seek work in Qatar, and even if it was possible to make one, it would surely still be impossible to argue that this should be infrastructure for the hosting of a bloody football tournament. The World Cup should be removed from Qatar, and if this doesn’t happen, then FIFA should be stripped of the omnipotence that it holds by whatever means are necessary.
BBC Radio Derby presenter Colin Bloomfield today announced he will be taking some time off as he undergoes treatment for skin cancer.
The breakfast show host announced that he had been diagnosed with skin cancer after finding a lump. He will undergo further tests to see if the cancer has spread to his lungs.
Colin, who lives in Derby city centre, took over at the helm of the flagship show from Phil Trow earlier this year.
He previously worked at Radio Derby on the 4pm until 7pm drive show, Sportscene and covered Derby County matches home and away. From tomorrow Ian Skye will temporarily present the show.
Speaking on Radio Derby this morning, Colin — who previously beat cancer after a diagnosis in 2001 — told colleague Sally Pepper that if the cancer has spread to his lungs, it would be “desperately unfair”.
The 31-year-old said: “In 2001, I didn’t think anything of this mole. It was only when my mum said to me to get it checked out that I did. This second lump that I found a few months ago, I found at 5am in the morning as I was getting ready to do my breakfast show. It was only the size of a pea but immediately the alarm bells were ringing. I did my breakfast show and then got it checked out in Birmingham that day. It’s never fair when you get cancer. But if it is stage four melanoma it feels desperately unfair because we hear all these messages about getting it checked out early. I couldn’t have got it checked out any earlier.
“In some respects, I’m quite lucky in the sense I’ve not been told I’ve got three months to live. They’ve said to me there is no cure but there are treatments that can prolong my life. But with all due respect, I’m 31 — I’m not interested in living until I’m 33 or 34. I’ve got a good job and good friends and family — I’m interested in living until I’m 80. Why would I want to live to 34 or 35 — what sort of consolation prize is that? I’m going to fight this — I want to live for another 40-50 years.”
Colin went on to say it did not feel like he is battling cancer. He said: “I don’t feel ill. If you put me on a treadmill in a gym I would probably beat most people. If it has spread (to my lungs), then it has done so without me knowing. It’s like a silent killer. It feels quite abstract.
“When I was told, that’s when it was toughest mentally. I was told on a Thursday and I was very stressed about it. I woke up on the Sunday and couldn’t breathe; my lungs felt very tight. I went outside and I was crying — I thought ‘oh God, this is now my life’. My dad came out and put his arm around me and we went off to A&E to see what it was all about. There, they told me it wasn’t anything apart from utter stress and anxiety.
“If it has spread to my lungs, we will deal with it. I just want to get to that day when they tell me I’m cancer free. At the moment I can’t plan my life because I don’t know what the next two years will be.”
The presenter has been inundated with goodwill messages since announcing on air this morning that he is fighting cancer.
World exclusive interview with Andy Burnham by Co-op News - recorded this last weekend at the Supporters Direct/FSF Conference held at St George's Park FA Centre of Excellence near Burton.
RamsTrust Chair Jim Wheeler will be on Radio Derby shortly at 6pm on the phone in to discuss increases in Season Ticket prices for disabled and senior supporters.
Many senior and disabled Season Ticket holders have contacted RamsTrust to express their outrage at the increase in prices for those groups this year.
HAVE *YOU* BEEN AFFECTED?
The trust has been told that some seats have more than doubled in price and also many people are not getting the reduction at 60 that they expected. This has apparently affected more women as the new reductions come at *65* and yet most women are on a graduated retirement scheme. Currently women are retiring at between 61 and 62 (depending on when their birthday is) but the reduction in season tickets has gone up in one go from 60 to 65. These women are on a pension but don't receive a discounted rate which might be discriminatory.
Some disabled supporters have been told casually to 'swap to the E band' seats - not only would that mean they moved away from friends BUT *there are no wheelchair seats on E band*
Furthermore the stairways are concrete and have no rails. What goon thinks elderly or disabled people want to sit there?
It appears that those E band seats are cheap 'singing seats' for youngsters - do seniors REALLY want to sit there?
Furthermore, Sam Rush clearly said on Radio Derby that disabled supporters had been consulted. Yet not ONE of the disabled people who have contacted the trust has been consulted at all - and some are in the Disabled Supporters Association.
If YOU have been consulted (or not) or if your seat price has gone up then please tell us your experience on here or mail in to membership@ramstrust.org.uk
(You might like to join the trust as we campaign for disabled and senior rights)
Remember, we all hope to be senior supporters one day!
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