Month: November 2013

After a run of winless games, Hull City AFC need our vocal and visible support more than at any time before this season. The Sky cameras will be here, so why don’t we put on a show for them?

City Till We Die is calling on all City supporters to show their backing for the boys as they play Liverpool by bringing their flags to the game. Got one tucked away in a cupboard somewhere? Then dig it out!

Wave them before kick-off to show you are 100% behind the team. Wave them when we score, to celebrate. And wave them to show your love for the historic name on those flags.

It’s exactly a year since City called for a Flag Day of their own – we think it’s a great idea and one we’d love to see repeated on Sunday.

Come on City.

For £2, supporters can become a CTWD member, and do their bit to help protect the name of Hull City AFC, while supporting the Tigers on the pitch.

At the same time, CTWD announces that it will form a Supporters’ Trust in the New Year with the intention of taking a stake in ownership of the club and the KC Stadium. In the meantime, the group has indicated its full support for, and participation in, the Hull City of Culture 2017 award.

In recent statements Dr Allam, owner of Hull City AFC (that remains the registered club name at the FA) has dismissed City Till We Die as a minority, only a couple of hundred strong. While we believe that number to be false, we accept the challenge and so have launched a membership scheme that will give the No To Hull Tigers campaign added legitimacy and demonstrable numeric support. Supporters can sign up online at www.citytillwedie.com/membership. We will be accepting written applications and cash payments in due course. The membership scheme is only the start of our continued positive campaign looking to an even brighter future for Hull City AFC.

As long ago as 2010 Dr Allam announced his preference for supporter ownership of Hull City (1) and this was reiterated when the CTWD team met him last month. He asked us not to mention the supporter ownership proposals following that meeting, a request that seems redundant now he has hinted at it in the club’s latest statement (2).

We are in discussions with umbrella group Supporters Direct to reinvigorate Tigers Co-op (3), the existing Supporters’ Trust for Hull City, and provide an independent voice for Hull City fans across the globe. The Trust will be established in the New Year by merging City Till We Die with Tigers Co-op. It will provide a vehicle for supporters to take part ownership of the club in line with Dr Allam’s wishes and, perhaps, a role in managing the KC Stadium and its surrounding development potential. Not only will this initiative provide supporters with a stake in the future of their beloved Hull City, it could provide a revenue stream that will allow Dr Allam’s investment to be repaid over time.

Once a committee is elected, we will also be throwing our weight behind the recent awarding to Hull of 2017 City of Culture status. Hull City AFC is a massive part of our great city’s culture (along with Hull’s other famous sporting teams) and we want to do everything we can to celebrate that. If you would like to speak to a representative for the City Till We Die group, or require any more information on the No To Hull Tigers campaign, please email notohulltigers@citytillwedie.com.

References:

1. http://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/Undefined-Headline/story-11957207-detail/story.html

2. http://www.hullcitytigers.com/news/article/201314-club-statement-season-cards-1186220.aspx

3. Established in 1998, Tigers Co-op is the Hull City Supporters’ Trust. The current leadership of the Tigers co-op are supportive of the proposed merger with CTWD and are fully behind our No To Hull Tigers campaign.

AMBITION AND TRADITION

CTWD forge ahead with future plans – Hello!

As a group of busy volunteers, Team CTWD have been working flat out on the campaign to retain the historic identity of the name of Hull City AFC as more and more examples of Dr Allam’s preferred new names for our club come to light. There have been press releases to explain our standpoint and counter falsehoods that have been levelled against us, arrangements for our first public meeting, exciting developments to launch a membership scheme and continuing plans to make our presence felt on a matchday – phew, where to start?!

Firstly, we would like to show our huge appreciation to all of you who have followed us on Twitter, liked us on Facebook, emailed us with numerous messages of support and incredible offers of practical help, joined this mailing list or visited our website. We could not do what we are doing without you and the suggestion that we are a ‘noisy minority’ of no more than 200 is really rather laughable! We continue to request support from you in all sorts of ways; this week for instance, you can help us in 3 particular areas:-

• Meet us at 1.45pm at West Park gates prior to the Crystal Palace match to distribute another 3000 badges and sign your name in support of our campaign on our CTWD gigantic flag (a massive 25 feet long!) which we are hoping to unfurl for the first time in the stadium.

• We are compiling a dossier of examples where the club are incorrectly using Hull City Tigers or Hull Tigers as our playing name, so if you spot anything, please email it to us at notohulltigers@citytillwedie.com and we’ll include it in a video we are producing to send to the FA demonstrating the rebrand by stealth which is currently occurring. Remember, as far as the FA is concerned, we are still Hull City, so being offered refunds on our season tickets for a change of name which actually hasn’t happened is rather a red herring.

• All our activities cost money – leaflets, badges, flag etc. We now have a donate button on our website (www.citytillwedie.com) and anything you can contribute will be put to good use we assure you. This campaign is a non-profit making one.

The media and written press have given us some tremendous coverage over the last couple of weeks. The highlight was probably the thrill of seeing the CTWD name scroll across the Sky Sports News ticker but we have had excellent pieces written in the Guardian, the Daily Mail, When Saturday Comes, across numerous sport websites and interviews on TalkSport, BBC Radio 5 Live, Sky Sports Radio, ITV Calendar, BBC Look North, KCFM and Radio Humberside. We are reaching a wide audience and are really encouraged by the support we are receiving from fans of other clubs around the country who realise that this is an issue which could potentially affect them at any time too. The football family are generally of our opinion – we have ambition but we’d like to keep our tradition. You may have noticed that we have adopted this as a slogan for the City Till We Die campaign. The idea was suggested to us by Danny, a lifelong City fan who now lives in Kansas, USA; passion runs deep about this around the globe!

So, to our two-pronged focus for the next phase of our campaign!

In recent interviews, Dr Allam has claimed that City Till We Die is just a small group of 200. This is untrue. Over 6,000 people are wearing our No To Hull Tigers badges. Over 5,000 people have signed our petition (www.citytillwedie.com/petition). But we want to officially confirm the true numbers supporting our No To Hull Tigers campaign. So we are launching a membership scheme. For a minimum fee of £2.00 (annually) you can show your pride in our club’s tradition and work for its future by joining our group, which is dedicated to retaining the name Hull City for a club that is successful and stable for many years to come. You will receive a City Till We Die wristband and membership card. Membership fees will finance leaflets, badges, stamps, and other campaign materials. You’ll also be able to have a say in who runs the group, by voting for members of the committee. In the future, it’s possible that City Till We Die may become an independent Hull City supporters trust – we’re currently actively working towards that goal.

The membership scheme will be officially launched with a public meeting on Saturday 14^th December prior to the Stoke City game. This is your chance to meet the people behind the No To Hull Tigers campaign and share your views. Guest speakers will include FA Council Supporters’ Representative Dr Malcolm Clarke. There will also be music from Hull bands Vinnie & The All Stars and Cuba Drive.

Details of both the membership scheme and the public meeting will be formally announced soon through our usual channels. Please keep checking us out on social media – follow our Twitter account @notohulltigers, like us on Facebook (www.facebook.com/NoToHullTigers) – and through the blog on our website (www.citytillwedie.com) where we will continue to post items of interest, audio coverage of interviews, copies of press releases and minutes from CTWD meetings. Obviously, we will also try to post regular updates to this mailing list too.

Finally, we have a very important game of football coming up at the KC on Saturday. CTWD remain 100% committed to supporting the team which has provided us with some superb entertainment and results so far this season. We need you to join in our adopted chant on minute 19:04, sing loud and proud “City Till I Die” and if you have a scarf, hold it high! These are selling well from our webshop (www.ctwdshop.com) at £5.00 each and we are willing to send them wherever you are in the world.

Stand up and be counted, and help us to protect the identity of the club we love.

CITY TILL WE DIE

Dear Dr Allam,

The City Till We Die campaign group (CTWD) writes to you today to request that you work with us to consult a broad range of Hull City fans on your name change proposals. 

Our proposal is that we will work with you and your public relations team to develop a simple consultation paper for distribution to supporters.  The paper will be split into three sections: your justification for the name change (which we hope you will write personally to give it importance and authenticity); CTWD’s justification for why we think keeping the name Hull City is important; and a section for supporters to answer a simple two-choice question about the club’s playing name.

The CTWD group can produce artwork and copies of the agreed consultation paper.  And if it is agreeable to you, we can collate and analyse the responses.  All we ask in return is for you to use existing communication channels with the Club’s season ticket holders to distribute the form, either in hard copy or electronically. By using existing channels, there should be no Data Protection issues.

The Premier League and Football Association suggest that consultation with fans is needed before a club considers changing its playing name.  This consultation hasn’t happened yet at Hull City and you committed to consultation when we met you recently.  We now wish to work with you to make this consultation happen as soon as possible.

We look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience.

Yours sincerely,

City Till We Die campaign group

City Till We Die, a group of Hull City AFC supporters, today invite the club owner Dr Assem Allam to join us in an inclusive and meaningful consultation on his name change proposals.

The Football Association will require consultation with fans before it will ratify a name change – so let’s get on with it.

Our theme for the consultation is simple – AMBITION AND TRADITION.

Last week was a tumultuous one for the Hull City supporters campaign group City Till We Die, with Hull City AFC owner Dr Assem Allam featuring in a series of high profile interviews regarding his proposal to change the club name to Hull Tigers.

Less than two weeks after giving our group a promise that he would undertake research, launch a consultation and have a 2-3 year pause before changing the club name, Dr Allam is now pressing ahead regardless in the New Year.

City Till We Die remains a positive group, proud of our football club and grateful for the fabulous work that Dr Allam has done for Hull City AFC. We remain unerringly focused on what we believe is right for the club’s supporters – the thousands of people who are financial and emotional stakeholders in Hull City AFC. We believe that fans want a football club that grows into a Premier League force, raising the revenues needed to do that while maintaining a keen eye on the club’s history and standing in the football world. Ambition and tradition.

We are therefore writing to Dr Allam with a simple proposition. Work with us to launch a simple and inclusive supporter consultation regarding the name change proposal. CTWD has the passion and time to put the consultation paper together, and we will give equal prominence to our justification for keeping Hull City AFC and Dr Allam’s reasoning for change (we want him to write this personally, we promise not to change a word). 

We will also agree with Dr Allam the wording of a single, simple yes/no question. All we ask of the club is that they use their database of 20,000 season ticket holders to distribute the consultation paper, so that the full breadth of City’s support can be heard.

We don’t anticipate Dr Allam will refuse our offer. He has stated that he believes 98% of Hull City fans support his proposed name change; we think that is incorrect. So let’s ask them. If he wants to ignore the views expressed, that’s his prerogative. But let’s hear the full voice of the fans right here, right now. 

A few clarifications from last week’s interviews:

During last week’s raft of interviews Dr Allam made a few points that were not correct, and which we would like to clarify:

• He claimed that the name of the club registered with the FA is already Hull City Tigers. It isn’t: the “entity name” (company name) Hull City Tigers Ltd is indeed registered with the FA, but that isn’t the club name (Hull City AFC), or the playing name which appears in league tables etc (Hull City).
• He claimed that “shortening” a name is not “changing” a name (he’s wrong, no dictionary in the land supports this linguistic backflip).
• He claimed that “Tigers” had been part of the company name throughout its history (he’s wrong, it has only been in the company name since 2001, some 97 years after the club formed).
•  He claimed that our group is a tiny minority of 200 fans (it isn’t, we have amassed 1,900 Twitter followers and 1,900 Facebook likes in a few short weeks, we have had 6,000 badges eagerly snatched from our grasp, while Dr Allam already has a copy of our petition, which now has 5,000 signatures).
• He claimed that he pays all the bills from his own personal wealth (he doesn’t, supporters contribute many millions to the club every season).
• He said that our recent opponents are called Southampton Saints (they aren’t… no further clarification needed there). 

If you would like to speak to a representative for the City Till We Die group, or require any more information on the No To Hull Tigers campaign, please email notohulltigers@citytillwedie.com

“What are they thinking of? Hull City is already a monumental ‘brand’. Hull City is one of THE great Northern footy clubs and, just like Leeds United or Bolton Wanderers, Hull City embodies the values of the people who make the club. It’s a club with heart and real history, and the thousands who flock there have an emotional bond with a historic team. They’re proud to call themselves City fans. It’s crazy that anyone would even contemplate messing with that. It’s Hull City. Always has been. Always will be.”

Kevin Sampson, Writer. Find out more about Kevin here and follow him on Twitter here.

…explain the situation, you need the club to survive very well at the highest possible level with or without me, and a suggestion came, said sensible, if we can come up with an alternative way to generate income would you change your mind. I said of course yes and I welcome the idea. I’m still waiting and the minute someone come up with another idea, they can have a meeting with me at short notice.

Sure. So the textbooks say go for a shorter name…

Yes.

But what about this global impact that you’re trying to get for Hull City? How are you going to test the market overseas?

No that’s… no. I’m not here to discuss, er, market research ideas. Is not really for the programme and it is for my advisers and myself and using my experience and the specialist. It is not something I can sit- you need two hours. For me to explain this you need two hours. No. But the main thing is, shorter name, I think no dispute, shorter names have a stronger and quick impact on the market place. That’s fact. Everybody knows it. You don’t need to be a marketeer to know that.

You spoke to the fans last week. They’ve seen your statement and they’ve issued another one of their own, I’m sure you’ve seen it…

[Nods]

…But just to remind you, they say ‘We remain puzzled that Dr Allam cannot distinguish between the name of the holding company and the football name of the club he owns. Until he registers the new name with the Football Association, the club remains Hull City AFC. Dr Allam believes we are already called Hull City Tigers, a name ripe for shortening, Therefore that’s spectacularly,’ in their words, ‘ill judged and erroneous.’ What do you say to that?

Free country! Believe in what you want to believe in. Is a free country. Say what you like. I don’t answer these questions.

They go on to say, ‘Our group has already had extensive contact with key figures at the FA, and we anticipate they will take a dim view both of this announcement and of Dr Allam’s rubbishing our club’s proud history at the meeting we had with him last week.’

Please yourself. That’s your opinion. No, that’s not the case. I don’t rubbish ideas, I never done, I wouldn’t have had my business you see now by rubbishing other people’s ideas. No, I listen to all ideas. I made the effort to meet with the fans and erm we discussed everything and explained the situation and, err….The only thing to change this is someone to come and say – as they did suggest – we have a different way of creating income. But anybody who says to me they want to… What do we want? Do we want quality of football or a long name. If you want quality of football, I think I know how to do it and we have taken the club to, err,  Premier League, and my ambition is to take the club to Europe.

And what’s your final message would you say to the group you met the other day, the group that calls itself City Till I Die?

Yeah they can City Till They Die as much as they like, nothing will change. Look it is me who is paying. They can City Until They Die as much as they like. The criteria is, one of the colleagues attended said, the most sensible thing said at the meeting, what if I can I come up with ideas, alternative ideas. That’s how to conduct a discussion.

 I work ten hours a day. I haven’t got the luxury of time. I have responsibility of this company. I have responsibility of the club. The fans will not forgive me if things go wrong with the club. And I wouldn’t let this happen. So is the last time today, deadline, no more discussion. People can talk to themselves, but not to me. I want to maintain, I want to look after, to continue to look after my business, and certainly to continue doing my very best to the football club and get the best names. Now we are getting the best names in English football in your back garden for you to come here and watch. Err…, I will continue try to do that. That’s my objectives. I have no other objective, and I wouldn’t let go.

It must disappoint you that you’ve had such a great start to the season, the fans really should be on a high at the moment but that some, there’s a small faction who are upset with you for, for dropping AFC and potentially dropping City as well from the name.

Yeah we have dropped AFC, it meant nothing to the football and to the club and to the area. Er, City we are considering. I could have dropped it if I want to in early this year I did not cause I don’t drop shorter names for the sake of shorten. We need to know that we going to achieve the object of the exercise and that’s why we’ve not done it. I don’t know why the fuss, we have not shortened, we have not removed the word City from the name. We have not changed the name, we are trying to shorten the name. The name since 1904 in the companies house and with the FA has always been Hull City AFC Tigers Ltd. We have not introduced Tigers or reduced. All what we’ve done, we have removed AFC, and that’s non-negotiable, and I won’t entertain any question about it. I would not entertain questions. City I haven’t done it yet. I’m looking at it, and by the early next year we will decide, will have decided to drop City or to keep, er, City. But one thing, we will not issue next season’s season passes before we have decided to drop or to keep City because I would like the fans to vote by their feet. I will not issue this before they know what we’ve done, to be honest with the fans and transparent. Er, It’s very unfortunate really that small group of the fans try to ruin it for the rest. Let’s enjoy Premier League football. You keep talking about history and name and… I’m not historian. There are things you’re good at, things you don’t good at. I am not a historian and I don’t look at the, the… I look at the future. You look at the past, you live in the past, but if you want to live in the past take the past as a whole. We were equivalent to League Eight. OK, take City and AFC ten times and stay in League Eight or Conference or whatever. Er……I can not help you with the history. I can help with the quality of football. And I’m committed to get the best quality  European football into the area. That’s things I can attempt to do, and I think I have achieved in my life targets. If you want names, AFC, have it, but I’m not your man. I’m not the right man for you. Er, … It is… You know when they call City Till They Die or something, you talk about a few hundred, you only talk about few hundred, but they shout louder and they have banners. I will never run my club for the community at large by banners or by who shouts louder. We have seen before in the trade unions which you wouldn’t remember the mining industry, they went gone from Britain because we had trade unions who shouted louder and carried the banners. You will remember Arthur Scargill. This guy gave the, mine, mine, the mining to death. I’m not having this. I won’t allow them to do that. Fans, yes that’s their club, and I have done it for them and spend money for the fans, but for the fans, not for five hundred of the fans. They can shout as high and loud as they… Is not me. Is not me.

How was the meeting, you know that you had with the fans. Was it productive from your perspective? Was it positive?

Yes. They conducted… It was conducted in a very sensible manner. I was pleased with it. We had, they explained the situation and then I explained the situation. In actual fact the comment was made, yes there’s a wider issue, it is a wider issue is not there when I explained you need to shorten the name to go global, to create a big impact. It’s like Twitter, Google, Apple, Pepsi-Cola, Coca-Cola. The shorter the name, the stronger the impact and that’s what takes you global. Now, the club is called, now, Hull City Tigers. If you want to shorten this would you drop Hull? No. Would you drop Tigers? No. Would you drop City? Is the one that logically the one you choose to drop because it doesn’t mean anything for football. Hull is the area, and tiger is the symbol of power, and luckily we have a very good logo, the tigers. Tiger’s not only powerful, symbol of power, but also is a good looking animal. In my view is the best looking animal, better looking animal than… It shows you the power and it’s a good looking animal. And we take the club forward to go globally, rather than sit in a corner and cry and want to a hundred years ago we were called AFC, a hundred years ago you were League Eight or whatever, and is not me, I can’t help you with that. I can help with the promoting the club but I can’t help with that. 

You said you’re gonna conduct some market research, is that correct? Into whether it is financially viable, is that right?

Yes I’m looking, I’m studying the case. I need time and that’s why I did not change- shorten-  the name earlier this year, when I could. Is the same application form, by the way. I removed AFC, I could have removed City. There was no point. I need, I don’t rush into things. I need to look that I’m going to achieve something. Err, and therefore, I left it till  maximum before we issued the new season passes, as a maximum, so everybody will know where to stand. Er, I don’t want just… I feel sorry for the community for the majority of the fans, that there’s a minority trying to spoil the season for them. That’s the time we all should be very pleased, very pleased with the results, with the management of the football, with the squad we’ve got, and with the quality of the football on a match-day, and I don’t want really… I’m not happy that a few, no more than a few hundred, and you will see this when we issue new season passes, you will see it’s few hundred. Do you know when we dropped the AFC and came public and again same small few hundred, I’m saying five hundred, I’m exaggerating really, you’re not talking about two hundred, and they shouting louder, banners, ‘we will stop the season pass, will return my passes, will return the commercials’, and immediately I instructed my management in the club that anyone wants to return season passes is to return immediately same day cash without deducting management charges and anybody wants to return the shirt or the shorts or anything, immediately to be taken back for cash, immediately. And you know what happened? One returned the shirt. One. So it’s a shouting louder and carrying the banners. I’m too old for that.

If the market research comes back negatives, would you consider keeping City?

Yeah, I’ve no reason to change, to… number one, no change of names. I don’t change names. We shorten names, yes, if necessary, if and when necessary, that’s all. Not… I don’t shorten name because I’ve got nothing else to do. No, there is a reason. I’m a very, very busy man. I’m still working full time at the age of 74 cause I can’t afford to relax with the commitment I have. My commitment to my company, my commitment to err the err university and the medical research and my commitment to the club and to the fans, so I can’t… and to the Daisy Appeal, err which we’re doing a very, very good job and we’re having shortly received the state of the art latest technology CT scan, it will be best in the country, the best in the country will be in Hull. I have this commitment, I’m very busy. I’m too busy to talk about nonsense, really, err I can’t have, I don’t have, I wish I had the time. I don’t have time for nonsense. I have time to achieve things, but not for nonsense. People want to talk nonsense, please yourself. People want City Till They Die, please themselves. I want Tigers while we are alive.

But there is a chance that City could stay if the market research…

Is a free country! Call it what you like!

No but is there a chance it could stay in the official title if the market research comes back negative, if it shows it isn’t financially beneficial?

If it is not financial with anything there is no point of changing, of shortening. No point of shortening is there’s no… As I said, I’m not sitting here having nothing else to do so I shorten names, no! Err…. and is not necessarily a market issue because I don’t want people to say is market research and question this and question that and who’s doing it. I had an interview before, ‘who’s doing this?’, no no. It is my decision. When it comes to commercial it is my decision. When it comes to the fan, it is their decision. The fans’ decision if they change the colour, change the logo, change the name, that’s definitely, I would never do that without the fans err, err, discussing with the fans and I wouldn’t want to do that anyway, change colour, change logo, change err name. Shortening the name is essential and if it proves essential, beneficial, I will do it, and I’m not here to discuss who is doing the research, who is doing the study. It is my decision, and otherwise I will stop working here and start discussing err whatever the advice I am getting.

When could this happen? When’s the earliest that the City…

We have to decide on this before err by early next year because it will certainly before we issue new season passes for the fans to decide what they want to do. Sorry it’s err, early next year to do it or not to do it, to shorten the name by removing City and become as powerful as Southampton. Is not Southampton AFC. It is not Southampton City AFC, no, it is Southampton Saints, right? And we have Arsenal, you have Chelsea, you have err Everton, you have West Bromwich, you have many many, you can play football without being AFC do you know!

Your dream is to get them into Europe isn’t it?

Yes.

That’s your dream isn’t it?

Yes.

Do you feel that this could do that?

Yes and I urge the small minority of the fans who don’t even represent 1 per cent to reconsider and let the community enjoy football, high quality football. You see Leeds. ITV Calendar is based in Leeds. You know that at one time they were talking about Red Bull buying Leeds United and the fans said yes and change the name to Red Bull and the fans said yes, take us to Premier League. And I wouldn’t do that anyway, I wouldn’t change that. But even changing the name to American name, the fans said but take us to quality football. Cardiff: the fans are happy, watching quality football, and beating Swansea, you know how it is derby match it is, and playing Premier League…

In red…

In red! Can’t you see, that’s sensible. They’re watching good football. Do you want to watch a shirt or a football? But…

But the argument…

But as it happened I am dead against changing name or colour or logo. I’m very pleased with the logo and the colour and the name, Hull Tigers, if that will be better for the club, and for the community so we need the fans to be… They come up with a very good idea in the meeting, they say, OK, what if we come up with another idea to generate income, commercial income instead of shortening the name. I said I love it! Come up, and I’m waiting. I’m waiting for the fans who are shouting louder and carrying banners to come to me and say, well, if you want to, because you want to go global and create commercial income, we have a different idea. They were all there, there were about 15 of the representatives there in the meeting, and they have heard their colleague saying what if we come up with an alternative. I jumped on the opportunity, I said yes, I give you a meeting at short notice. Come up with this. Shouting louder will not change me. Carrying banners will not change me. You’ll die with City, die with City, will not change me. But let the rest of the community enjoy it. Stop this. The community have the right to enjoy good football.

(Listen again here)

We will decide by the early next year. So I honestly don’t know why the fuss. Why there is small group making all this fuss. Look, we are in the Premier League, we have good manager, we have a good squad, we have good result mid-table. Let us enjoy, let the fans enjoy it. I don’t want small minority to spoil it for our fans.

Do you want to take the word City out of the title?
I didn’t say that.

No no, I’m asking you, it’s a question. Do you want to take the word…
If it’s proved between now and early next year that shortening, further shortening the name by removing City to be Hull Tigers, I will do it.

How do you prove that?
No, that’s up to me. It is my… Look, nobody in the world will decide for me how I run my companies, and certainly not few hundred people, no, no no. I would not allow that. Let us establish this please. Nobody questions my decision. Nobody questions my decision in my business. What the fans should be interested in: I will never change the colour, I will never change the logo, I will never remove Hull, I will never remove Tigers. These words were there for many years. The colour of the club, amber and black, is there. The tiger logo is there. That’s for the fan and I will never change this without consulting the fan. As for the commercial decisions: it’s my decision.

No but Dr Allam, you said to me that if it is proved to be commercially useful to take the word City out then you may well do that. My question is, how will you determine that proof? That’s my question.
By me saying that.

Yeah, but what are you going to look at?
By me saying that and only me saying that.

Yes, but how will you arrive at that decision? What factors…
Nobody questions me how I arrive to my decision.

No, no, no, but I think the fans would like to know what factors…
No, no, nobody have the right to ask me how I reach my decision. This is a commercial decision. As I said, if it’s proved essential to further shorten the name then you have Hull, you have City, you have Tiger, how can I shorten these three words to two? I shouldn’t touch Hull, I shouldn’t touch Tiger, City does not mean a thing to me regarding my objectives of taking the club forward.

You’ll make that final decision about the word City in the New Year, that’s what you’re saying?
It is my decision.

In the New Year you’ll decide, will you?
I don’t know, but early in next year. The club can not rely on my money all the time. The club should be able to survive comfortably with me being alive or dead. At the moment, the club can not survive without my money. That is not on.

Talk me through this statement you’ve made, Dr Allam, regarding the change of name for Hull City AFC.

No, I have not changed names. I don’t know where you got this from. We… I don’t change names. If you mean shortening the name, yes we have shortened the name by removing AFC.

That’s already happened?

Oh yes, earlier this year.

So that was done in consultation with the Football Association and Premier League?

Why do I do that?

Forgive me, are you talking about the holding company for the football club, or the football team name?

The football club’s name as registered in the Companies House and with the FA changed from Hull City AFC (Tigers) Ltd to Hull City Tigers Ltd earlier this year.

Tigers wasn’t part of the name before though was it?

Always been part of name. Look, from 1904, Hull and City and Tigers always there, so there’s no addition to the name. No change of name.

But they were called Hull City AFC since 1904 and Tigers has been their nickname.

No no no, Tigers in the registered name. Tiger is a part of the registered name with the Companies House and the Football Association.

The fans that I spoke to last week were absolutely delighted having been given your time and had a meeting with you a week last Friday to talk about the name. They really felt they’d made progress, that you were listening to their concerns and that you might consider keeping the name as it was, as it has been. So were they mistaken in feeling encouraged?

No, there’s nothing changed. I explained the position. I explained why we shortening names to have a more powerful impact on the market to enable the club to go globally and try to generate commercial income like other clubs. But gradually we’ll do it, look at Manchester United, and the end… so they understood the position why we need the money. I’m here to look after the football, improve the quality of football for the fans, and for the area. So promotion to Premier League is an achievement. The next step in few years’ time I would like to see the club going to Europe and get players from Europe to play here.

Can’t it do that as Hull City AFC? It strikes me that a man with your obviously talented business brain could make this a commercial success with its existing name.

You need money. You need money. It doesn’t come for nothing. You need money. And to do money you need to promote yourself. You go globally, generate cash, income, commercial income, from commercial activities worldwide. So it doesn’t come to you as a present, no it comes… you need money. We need money. If you look at the accounts which will be published next week for the year ended 31st of July this year you’ll see about 75 million pounds spent since I bought the club. But it’s money well spent because we have better football. If you want better football I will help with this. If you want to worship names, do it – it’s a free country, y’know, keep saying AFC, but I’m not…

But the thing is Mr Allam, you have rescued the football club, spent millions, this is the point surely where you could turn from hero to villain. Why would you upset your customers if you want to make money?

You’d never need me to turn into villain. I am here, I bought the club for the fans and it will always be the case. It change from this to that as you say only if I don’t achieve the objective. The objective was save the club and go to the top category of football and carry on improving. That’s what I’m doing. By the way, any question about AFC I’m not answering.

Okay, well that’s fine, I think you’ve already answered that question. So the club’s name has already changed and you want to add the name Tigers to it.

No! No, I don’t know why we keep… the club has not changed names and I will not change club’s names. We have shortened the name by removing AFC.

But people will argue that is changing the name, Dr Allam.

They can please themselves. I can’t help it. Changing name is introducing a name instead of a name. We have not. We have shortened the name and I will carry on unless… You see, in the meeting, someone came up with the bright idea, said, okay we understand, what about would you like us to think of another way of generating income? I said yes of course and I give you short notice meeting as soon as you come up with a different proposal, we’ll do it.

You did say that you were going to conduct extensive market research into what impact a name change would have as well. Have you commissioned someone to do that research? How are you going to do that research?

No one on earth is allowed to question how I do my business. No one on earth. Let’s kill this point. I know how to run my business. Nobody will question this or that.

I’m just interested to know how you are going to do that.

Leave the answers to me. I promised to get you good football and I’ve done it. Leave this to me, otherwise everybody will question me how I run my business tomorrow.

Okay. I’m just interested to know, are you going to be looking at sports around the world…

All that you need to do is to come up, as the gentleman suggested, come up with an alternative to generate cash. I will listen and I will jump on the opportunity.

And you have evidence that if you don’t change the name you won’t be able to make money?

Change the name to what?

To Hull City Tigers or Hull Tigers.

Again you call it change of name! I haven’t changed names! Do you mean shortening the name?

Well it’s lengthening it, isn’t it, because it was Hull City AFC. If you want to make it Hull City Tigers that’s longer isn’t it?

I don’t know what to say! Can I say this for the last time? No change of name, shortening the name. The name as registered with the FA and the Companies House always has been Hull City AFC (Tigers) Ltd, so I am not adding Tigers, it is there. I’m not adding City. I’m not adding Hull. I’m removing AFC, that’s all. And then considering, by early next year, considering the decision to further shortening by – Hull City Tigers now, and has been all the time – to shorten, to remove one word. Do I remove Hull or remove City or remove Tigers?

Well, people will argue that Tigers isn’t part of the name now, but we could get…

Tigers has always been part of the name!

Always been the nickname…

No, no!

I was on the pitch with you during that wonderful celebration you threw at the KC Stadium where everyone was chanting “City till we die”. It means something to them.

No, they can “City till they die” as much as they like. But let’s take this: Tigers is in the name with FA, I keep repeating this, with FA and the Companies House, for ages.

Forgive me for repeating myself Dr Allam, it’s just that all of the Hull City fans that I’ve spoken to don’t agree with you. They’ve been under a completely different impression as to what the club’s name is.

It’s not an opinion, for god’s sake. It’s not my opinion. Look at the records. Talk to Companies House. Talk to the FA. It’s not an opinion. Tigers is there for ages.

Finally, what happens next Dr Allam? Are you going to be consulting further with the fans or are you going to be acting unilaterally?

Leave this to me. Nobody interferes in how I do my job. Leave it to me.

(Listen here)

At the meeting between Dr Assem Allam and supporter groups on 1 November 2013 to discuss the proposed name change for Hull City AFC, the Chairman referenced “marketing science” as the rationale for changing the club’s name. He cited the example of Manchester United FC temporarily dropping the letters “FC” from their badge, arguing that this had attracted American investment, resulting in the Glazers’ takeover of Manchester United.

In March 2013, the club’s company name was changed to Hull City Tigers Ltd, and a process of gradual rebranding is occurring, with an amended “Hull City Tigers” crest being used increasingly widely. The media and other clubs have been instructed to identify the team as Hull City Tigers in advance of the brand eventually becoming Hull Tigers.

Guardian journalist David Conn interviewed Dr Allam in September (see http://bit.ly/ConnAllam). As he later recounted in an interview with talkSPORT (see http://bit.ly/talkConn), after the article was published, Dr Allam’s secretary forwarded Conn the summary page of a study which he claimed supports his belief that his “name shortening” project has a logic and science behind it.

This summary relates to the paper “Company Name Fluency, Investor Recognition, And Firm Value” by T Clifton Green and Russell E Jame (viewable online here: http://www.viewdocsonline.com/document/kpzlit), originally published in the Journal Of Financial Economics, and later mentioned on the Harvard Business Review blog (which, it appears, is how it came to Dr Allam’s attention).

In its complete form, this article runs to 59 pages. Its authors are from the Goizueta Business School, Emory University, Atlanta and the School Of Banking And Finance of The University Of New South Wales respectively. It is unlikely the authors could have ever imagined that their abstract, which pertains to portfolio stock investors, would find itself at the centre of a row about the historic name of an English Premier League football club. Nevertheless, it has.

CORE THESIS

The core thesis of the article is that companies with names that are “easier to mentally process” – ie those with greater “name fluency” – have higher breadth of ownership (more shareholders), greater share turnover (more trades of their stock), and lower transaction price impacts. So the more “fluent” the name, the more successful the stock is likely to be. The article explores how familiarity with and affinity to a name as a result of its fluency may influence investor behaviour.

This is a hypothesis that pertains to stock portfolio investor behaviour and the human choice dynamics of people looking at thousands of publicly traded stocks. Hull City Tigers Ltd is not such a stock. Upon further reading, it becomes clear that the application of this hypothesis has been further confused with marketing and brand strength theory.

The opening line of the abstract gives a major clue to its lack of relevance: “Choosing from among the thousands of stocks to invest in is a difficult decision for most people”, it begins. Choosing one of twenty clubs competing in the English Premier League is a rather simpler business.

Even if we ignore this basic fact, the authors’ hypothesis does not support the theory that Hull City Tigers or Hull Tigers are more marketable than Hull City AFC.

“ENGLISHNESS” OF A NAME

The first element of the authors’ theory of fluency is the “Englishness” of the name; in this context, “Englishness” refers to the English language, not the culture of the country. Using the Englishness algorithm of Travers and Oliver (American Journal Of Psychology, 1978), word and sentence structure can be assessed mathematically for “Englishness” based on their relative common pattern to other commonly used words, phrases and letter combinations. A word has greater “Englishness” the more commonly its letter clusters appear in the English language; to use an example cited in the article, the letter combination “THE” appears in printed English 500 times more often than “THL”. So a name with the letters THE in it has a higher Englishness value than one with THL.

The insertion of the word Tigers, as in Hull City Tigers or Hull Tigers, significantly reduces the “Englishness” of the name. “City” is a common suffix in the English language, also appearing in words like “electricity”, “publicity” and “capacity”; “ity” is also a common letter cluster. “Tigers”, on the other hand, is a unique letter cluster. The very “commonness” that Dr Allam decries actually increases fluency.

The article also talks about rebranding and the impact on linguistic fluency. This concerns both phonological simplicity (does it sound correct?) and lexical simplicity (is it easy to say?). Though this is a “subjective experience of ease with which people process information” it seems clear that in this respect Hull City is more fluent than both Hull City Tigers and Hull Tigers.

OMITTED EXPRESSIONS

A further aspect of fluency is the length of a name. In the article, the authors suggest that for the purposes of analysis we should first “remove expressions that are part of the legal name but are often omitted when referring to the company”, such as Co, Corp, Inc, Ltd, LLC, and FSB. The acronym AFC is clearly just such an expression – it is already habitually omitted when referring to the club in an informal context. They similarly suggest dropping conjunctions such as and/or/the.

If we accept that the principles set out in the paper can be applied to football, in its current form Hull City (eight letters) is actually the fifth most investable Premier League team, with Fulham (six letters), Arsenal (seven), Chelsea (seven) and Everton (seven) being the only shorter team names. Rebranding to Hull Tigers (ten letters) sees us slip further down the fluency table to join Aston Villa (ten), behind Liverpool (eight) and Stoke City (nine).

CONCLUSION

There is little to be gained by trying to stretch this theory further by applying it to an unintended target. The application of this hypothesis to the company name or team name of an English Premier League football club is sure to descend into farce.

The bottom line for this analysis is that the very renaming or “name shortening” proposed by Dr Allam actually has the opposite result to the course of action recommended by the paper cited as its justification. By any measure of the theory, changing to Hull City Tigers or Hull Tigers makes the “fluency value” worse. Far from supporting Dr Allam’s case, this paper actually contradicts it.

Chris Cooper is a partner with a global consulting firm, visiting professor for the Buckingham University Business School, co-author of Winning By Design, and author of The Little Book Of Lean.

The City Till We Die group notes with interest that Barnsley FC are offering their supporters the chance to vote on a new badge for their club, via the website www.bebarnsley.com.

Barnsley supporters are being offered a choice of five options. They can choose one of four new designs, or choose to keep the club’s existing badge.

In a club statement on 9 August 2013, Hull City stated: “A new badge, to be used from the 2014-15 season, will be designed and created in consultation with fans over the coming months.”

City Till We Die believes that a poll of supporters is an essential part of any such consultation process, and that such a poll is meaninglessness if it only offers a choice between a range of unacceptable options.

We also believe that what is good enough for supporters of Barnsley FC should be good enough for supporters of Hull City AFC.

We therefore call upon the club to confirm that:

• Any change to the club badge will be subject to a vote by supporters.
• Any poll of supporters on a new badge will include an option to keep the existing design (currently in use on the shirts for the 2013-2014 season) – including its current wording.

City Till We Die has been made aware of comments made by Managing Director Nick Thompson in an interview published on the iSportconnect website on Friday 1 November. You can read the full piece here: http://bit.ly/NickThom

During the course of the interview Mr Thompson states, “the fans who are campaigning to retain the letters AFC in the official business name actually don’t use it to describe themselves. It is about keeping the key elements that are important to the identity and the essence of the brand. Two brackets, an AFC and the word Limited are not essential.”

This is inaccurate. The club’s business name (changed from “Hull City Association Football Club (Tigers) Limited” to “Hull City Tigers Ltd” in March 2013) is not the focus of the No To Hull Tigers campaign. Our only interest in the new business name is the degree to which its increasingly widespread use outside of a business context causes confusion.

City Till We Die is opposed to changing the playing name of the football club to Hull Tigers or Hull City Tigers – unless a majority of supporters vote in favour of doing so. We will campaign forcefully for a no vote in any such fan referendum.

We are disappointed by Mr Thompson’s misrepresentation of our views, disagree strongly with his assertion that only 5% are opposed to a name change, and reject his negative stereotyping of supporters of the campaign.

Mr Thompson will be leaving the club in December. City Till We Die will be asking to meet with his successor at the earliest opportunity to make our aims clear.

CITY TILL WE DIE