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