Candidates elected for club's new fans' board

“I am also extemely disappointed by this flawed election. It was conceived as a body to spread fan representation to the greatest number possible. As a supporter of 50 years standing I, and thousands of others, were disenfranchised by choosing to be pay on the day fans. We then find out that 4 year olds have ben voting (with a little help from Dad I guess), all this under the auspices of the ERS.

That the club chose to ignore the concerns and representations brought forward from the Argyle Fans Trust, an existing democratically elected body of fans (open to all, I may add) about the flawed process does not engender any real faith that the club is doing nothing more than pay lip service to fan engagement.”

“The pasb project has been a farce from start to finish. But what makes it worse is that some candidates were told that if they continued to post on one fan's forum that it would harm their chances of being elected to the pasb. Maybe Tony could explain why he suddenly stopped his involvement in ATD.”

“It is not for me to comment on the personal issues that Greenjock raises but within this there are some serious issues and questions for the board and in particular the driver for the PASB, the President Chris Webb.

When Chris was appointed as President he said in the Herald:

"I am ready and willing to play my part in building a new Argyle based on values of honesty, integrity and transparency."

I simply do not agree that the election process, the sidelining of the Trust that he once led and the ongoing PASB display the values that Chris outlined upon his appointment. I don't think he can seriously back the idea and the process.

As it happens the Trust will dominate the new PASB, or at least its members will. I would be all for the PASB voting at their first meeting to disband and call a new election. It would be interesting to see whether or not the representatives from the supporters groups who are Trust members would back this. I doubt it. Whilst they are all too keen to say how much they support the Trust in public their private actions speak louder than words. Once Lee Jameson has his slippers under the table I don't think he would voluntarily give that up.

Anyway onto better news.....we won 3-1, 2 league wins on the bounce and the food at Jolly Jacks was lovely on Saturday. I would heartily recommend the restaurant although you probably don't want to go on a Saturday when Argyle are at home as its a favourite with some of Argyle's more boorish fanbase.”

“Argyle Talk Democratic

ATD, The Only Truly Independent Plymouth Argyle Forum, with its own Independent Argyle Ambassador.”

“argyleultra your right about the fighting but it's for the truth and you'll only find it on one Argyle related website, ATD.”

“Surely the EH needs to look closely at how this election was run.
Some comments on here make for intersting & regretable reading,
the battle to save the club is over for now - (if the club is go forward anytime in the next 10 years we need a different owner) but it seems various factions are still fighting!”

“Sorry Devonview, I wasn't looking to involve you in any dispute, I was just glad you agreed what a shambles it all is!

The election process began almost a year ago now, with the idea coming from James Brent himself and trumpetted as a great opportunity by Chris Webb, who used to be the most vocal of supporters voices.

The Argyle Fans Trust board were democratically elected earlier this year, with a far higher turnout than the PASB turnout, despite anyone wanting to vote in the PASB elections merely having to tick a box and return the form in the pre-paid envelope.

These AFT elections were attacked in certain quarters for it's turnout, the process itself, and there was even a claim of conflict of interests between a board member and somebody involved in the process of the election papers, which incidentally was completely unfounded.

The people who could not wait to shout about the AFT and how it was being run, and dig time and time again about every minute detail of the Trust itself and the election process, are now con****ious by their absence in commenting on the much, much more shambolic PASB.

If it is because they do not care about the PASB then this tells you that it was never wanted or needed, when the Argyle Fans Trust was already in place.

From shouting from the highest rooftops, these detractors are now all silent when this whole saga has been akin to a primary school game of British Bulldog, where the children fall out over choosing the teams.

Right at the start of the PASB process, then called the GAS Board, there were interested fans locked out of the first all important meeting, due to a lack of space! Which was strange as there were less than 20 people there.

Then it has it's name changed to the PASB, but still the majority of Argyle fans knew little or nothing about it, or were just not interested in another supporters group.

There were no female candidates, or anyone too young to remember Tommy Tynan gracing the Home Park pitch. None, not one from either of these groups.

Meetings were cancelled or re-arranged and the distribution of literature followed a similar level of professionalism, where fans were not given leaflets at the designated home game.

Pay on the day fans who account for over half of the Argyle gate, and a very high percentage of all Argyle fans, were not deemed important enough to be represented. Indeed Tony Hooper is usually very vocal about the fact that he represented season ticket holders who should receive better treatment than pay on the day fans. Mr Hooper is also against the Argyle Fans Trust, but didn't want this to be widely advertised in the run up to the elections.

These facts may have swayed voters had the hustings gone ahead, but nobody saw fit to ask the candidates if they could make the proposed date, so these were cancelled.

As a consequence of all of these mistakes and the shoddy way in which the PASB process was going, John Petrie decided that he could no longer be a part of it. When someone as respected as John Petrie says this the club should have acted, but they sat on their hands.

When the Argyle Fans Trust with all it's members expressed their concerns with the process, the club should have acted, but they sat on their hands.

So we were left with a small proportion of the Argyle fanbase represented, including EVERY member, which included a large number of young children.

With no hustings for the fans who were granted a vote to decide who would best serve them, we are left with an elected board who may have been elected because of their resemblance to Postman Pat or Bob the Builder.

Can we fix it? No we can't by the looks of it.”

“greenjock - I don't want to get involved in commenting on individuals or any silly arguments between fan websites. I was just commenting on the election which, I agree, was a shambles from start to finish.”

“Absolutely correct Devonview. This article quietly mentioned John Petrie withdrawing from the election partway through, and incidentally still obtained enough votes to have gained a place on the board, when in truth he withdrew because it was such a shambles.

Meetings cancelled, fans wanting to express an interest being locked out of the initial meeting because of a lack of room! The hustings, which would have been the only real way of differentiate between all of the candidates, were cancelled because nobody thought to ask the candidates if the date was convenient, so in the end it became a contest where most of the candidates had given 100 words only to say why they should be elected.

Then the majority of Argyle fans who pay on the day and are not in the position to pay for a season ticket upfront, were not even eligible to vote, but candidates and season ticket holders children as young as 2 were sent ballot papers.

This seems typical of how Argyle is being run at the moment. Extremely unprofessional and as Devonview alluded to, I also don't believe that James Brent and the rest of the PAFC board can really be happy with the way this all panned out.

Chris Webb who was at first the only person giving this any mention in his posts on Pasoti and in his Pilgrims Progress column on the Argyle website, then starts telling people it was nothing to do with him when they expressed an interest?

As a Union Rep I very much doubt that Chris would put up with this kind of ridiculous election as part of his day job, but because it's an idea put forward by James Brent, all of a sudden the person who was most vociferous in the period when James Brent wanted to become the owner, encouraging fans to go with Mr Brent as he was so professional, so determined and successful in his other business interests, is now happy to accept such sloppiness with an election that has been decided by the votes of children under 5.

Pasoti, the website which claims to be the best Plymouth Argyle online forum, also seems to be of the view that the election was fine. Everything hunky dory with the whole process. For a more balanced view of everything Argyle, without the green-tinted specs outlook where everyone is happy with the club languishing in the bottom half of the Fourth Division, try Argyle Talk, http://tinyurl.com/9jqjbkd where debate is fiery and nobody is afraid to tell it like it is or they will be banned.

ATD are also sponsors Argyle's Robbie Williams and are 100% behind the Argyle Fans Trust, unlike a certain other Argyle fans forum which had moderators of the site attacking Trust board members anonymously, all using pseudoynms such as Deepthroat.”

“Unfortunately not part of this report, it may be important to record that John Petrie withdrew his candidature as he felt the process was so seriously flawed that he couldn't lend his support to the election. Similarly, the existing fans' body, The Trust, contacted the club to express their concern about the election process set up by the club. Along with many other flaws this included enabling children as young as 5 years old to take part in the voting.

This is appalling judgement by the new owner. He would not allow such shoddy practises in the rest of his business empire. Why should he allow this in our Argyle football club?

In itself many people who go to watch a football game, who may only be interested in the result, may consider this to be unimportant. But if this is how the new owner treats his paying public then one day he may treat that public with the same disdain as the previous owners did. And where did that lead to? James Brent has said he wants his tenure to be based on "INTEGRITY, HONESTY & FINANCIAL STABILITY". Let's see him live up to ALL of those avowed intentions.”