Time to get organised? (1 Viewer)

You got a like partly for content and partly for effort. Our perceived impotence in all of this has left a lot of us frustrated.

Wasn’t this tried?

The bare facts if it are even a well liked, widely supported new entrant would have trouble breaking through. The number of people as annoyed as you with the same specific beefs as you is not as large as you think. For most CCFC won’t be the number one issue politically and for those where it is a non zero number will disagree with your analysis and for those that do a non zero number will disagree with your remedy. You frame it as “a CCFC supporting candidate”, as if every CCFC fan has the same views when clearly that isn’t true. Or this place would be a lot quieter.

IMO you’re better off piggybacking off the existing political system, even Farage realised his weight was in influencing those with power not wielding it himself.

If it were me wanting this, the first thing I’d be doing it looking for sympathetic councillors that are already there. Or failing that dead eyed bastards who will support anything for a few extra votes. Marginal seats obviously prime territory. The problem here is it’s been years and there’s no councillor from either side or none that’s been willing to stick their head above the parapet. I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader to figure out why.

So next level down is finding challenger candidates that maybe have less skin in the game and want a stick to beat their incumbent with. In theory politics should be a perfect capitalist system, if your elected representative doesn’t meet your needs, the guy wanting to replace them likely will. Assuming what you’re asking is both feasible and not politically toxic. Bashing the council is rarely politically toxic so should be no worries there.

Make a list of wards, next year is a bumper year because of the COVID postponements I think so double candidates. Could be wrong there I’m just assuming. For each ward spend the time between now and then contacting the incumbent councillors and polling them for their opinions on the topic. Make a spreadsheet of this data. Group in Hard Sisu, Hard anti-Sisu, ambivalent, and couldn’t care less about football. Work on the middle groups until you have clear pro and anti groups identified.

Then for the anti candidates get to know likely challengers in their ward. Organise ground troops and printing resources and other stuff election candidates always need and offer that support. Previous time should’ve been spent building a contact database of people willing to help anyone who makes this a top issue. Offer this support to the best placed candidate to win each seat who is sympathetic to your cause.

Be public about what you’re doing. You aren’t really trying to win elections. Just build a majority view in the council one way or another so you want it well known what your demands are and how those who you have identified as going against them can call off the mob. You don’t care who wins. You care that who wins has the right opinions

IMO if that sounds too hard you’ll never win an election because that’s the absolute bare minimum you’ll have to do to even make a dent in an actual election result. If it doesn’t, it’s a cheaper and IMO more effective route for political change. Even if it means you don’t get Grendels face on an election leaflet.

You have to understand in politics the things that matter are benefit , housing , tax etc. Cov will be well down the pecking order club wise . If you want action write to your MP or the sports minister , standing for elections is not going anywhere , no poo poo what you said as I can hear your view , but there will be other ways

If you want to go for it, you’ll still have to muster support. Might be best to choose one symbolic seat (Duggins?) and target that.

I don’t know the situation with Charlton but the idea of people finding CCFC less political isafair one.

Standing a candidate in the next Lord Mayor elect seat is the way, I think that may well be George Duggins also the Labour leader and stand someone else in the Tory council leaders seat. councillor Blundell for balance. This issue isn’t party political.

I think we may need to agree a broad manifesto that nearly all true CCFC supporters could identify with. Avoid campaigning for specific solutions (e.g. Must be Ricoh, Must be UoW, Wasps Out, SISU Out etc.) but in favour of achievable outcomes, if elected officials were really to put their minds to making them happen. So the kind of outcomes might be:

* Commitment by local MPs, councils, civic organisations and local businesses to work with CCFC to ensure the city continues to have a top class football club by building on our present team's success on the pitch .

* Making sure CCFC is able to play football in or very close to the city within a maximum of 4 years in a ground it can call its own.

* Promotion of CCFC as a central player in the 2021 City of Culture calendar of events.

* Working in partnership with CCFC to promote community schemes and activities that raise the profile and standing of Coventry nationally.

* A cross-party political group of MPs and Councillors to celebrate CCFC's past and present successes and committed to the creation of an environment that will enable these successes to become increasingly frequent in the future.


These are illustrations of the kind of broad outcome we might aim for. There is sufficient knowledge and talent within this social forum to greatly improve on these examples. Once we can decide what the key issues are and how we want them addressed, we could then decide the best strategy to publicise our demands (e.g. events, demonstrations and activities) and the best tactics (e.g. best wards in which CCFC candidates for local councils might stand).

Minimise the differences between us and maximise the overall support for CCFC in the community - even nationally and internationally as well - stressing how a successful football club is an essential ingredient for the future success of the whole city and surrounding area.