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 14th 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