MSF Chair Standing Down

I am OK but really feel for Mark - there was suddenly a wave of abuse that came his way. Totally out of order.

I think you can see why people do not want to put their name and face on things in public. Hence why Red Faction was always just RF in the minutes in the Supporters Forum and they always remain hidden. Now you can see why football club personnel reverted to MFC in forum minutes and .
It is horrible to have to hide away in this way - and it should not be the reality. It should not come with the territory.
It is getting out of all proportion and perspective.

Please support us at the Foodbank and My Boro My Boots collections tomorrow. If Mark is there (I don't know whether he will feel up to it) please come over and give him some support.

I would just ask people to be more careful in what they write and how they write things.
There are people that have had to stop writing and reading the forum in the past and there are others I have stopped for their own good. We do need to look out for each other on this.

This whole situation this week has taken its toll personally on some members of the Forum and I think also some at Middlesbrough Football Club. I imagine also on some members of Red Faction also. I was genuinely fearful of where it all might end at one point.

Leave it a couple of days and we will get some better statements out about what has been going on in meetings etc but I don't want to push the people that took the minutes right now.
I was thinking about this yesterday before all this blew up - lets look at a mechanism on here where we can all feed into Forum meetings before and also afterwards. But we better let the dust settle a bit first, until a few of those involved (on all sides) are feeling a bit better about life.
 
borolad259 said:
If unity is what you're after, you don't seek to divide a meeting in a room and you don't walk out of it and then later proclaim some sort of "victory". And you don't get involved with belittling the efforts of other fans representatives. Not singling you out personally, just my observation from a distance.
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Not many people are privy to what went on in the meeting but what I’ve been told and what I’ve seen in the past is a question whether some fan groups ask challenging enough questions of the club, which I think is a fair point as they represent a lot of people (probably 10s of 1000s) so it’s a privileged and responsible role to undertake (albeit as volunteers).

I’m not part of a group and don’t feel singled out.

I’d just like lessons to have been learned from the last 2 weeks, by all involved, and we can get back to concentrating on the football
 
viv_andersons_nana said:
The personal abuse towards Mark and Rob is completely unwarranted and wholly unnecessary.

One issue here is that so many of us aren’t privy to these meetings. There is a real lack of clarity and detail about what happened, who said what, etc. The club hasn’t really released anything other than a token statement. When there is such a lack of detail and information made available to the supporters as a whole - some of these meetings and groups do feel like something of a closed-shop to be honest - then you’ll always be open to people filling in the spaces.

The club can rectify this by being more open, more often, and engaging properly. I suspect they won’t though. I agree with what @danamfc was saying tbh. In part, the club has caused this fall-out. Not that that makes the personal abuse any less horrible, obviously. But to pretend or imply the club hasn’t played a part in what happened throughout this week is a bit daft.

Just my opinion.
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That has definitely been recognised now. I can tell you that for certain. The message has completely sunk in. I think whatever happens next season we will see a completely different picture - everything will be more open. We decided that collectively at the meeting on Tuesday. But then the abuse followed and the people that were just starting to relay a message from Mbro Supporters Forum got absolutely hounded out.
 
Here here Rob. I think there are things we can all do better, myself included. We don't want this to happen again. We need to define very clear lines of reporting from top to bottom. There is no excuse for abuse regardless of perceived poor practice. We need to find a way to unite as a fanbase and that includes all groups. Transparency is the clearest route to unification in my book. That's a good place to start.


I don't want to reveal anything that's been said to me in strict confidence, but trust me when i say i think we've had a very close miss.
 
Humpty said:
Here here Rob. I think there are things we can all do better, myself included. We don't want this to happen again. We need to define very clear lines of reporting from top to bottom. There is no excuse for abuse regardless of perceived poor practice. We need to find a way to unite as a fanbase and that includes all groups. Transparency is the clearest route to unification in my book. That's a good place to start.


I don't want to reveal anything that's been said to me in strict confidence, but trust me i say i think we've had a very close miss.
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Do you have a role at these meetings, Humpty?


If you don’t mind me asking 😅
 
Humpty said:
Here here Rob. I think there are things we can all do better, myself included. We don't want this to happen again. We need to define very clear lines of reporting from top to bottom. There is no excuse for abuse regardless of perceived poor practice. We need to find a way to unite as a fanbase and that includes all groups. Transparency is the clearest route to unification in my book. That's a good place to start.


I don't want to reveal anything that's been said to me in strict confidence, but trust me i say i think we've had a very close miss.
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This thread was about Mark and he has been phenomenal in his chairing of Mbro Fans Forum - you would not believe how far he has moved the agenda on and bridged gaps between different fan groups and between fans and the club. It seems so wrong that it has all come back to really bite him.
 
danamfc said:
i think there are two truths personally, rob. yes absolutely, the doyles pelting abuse at people are the centrepiece of this, and trust me i’ve really had to bite my tongue this week reading some of the stuff posted, particularly on twitter.

the other truth is that the club have created a notably bad feeling within the fanbase because of the ticket increase fiasco - that was the prelude and this is the fall out of it. that’s just how i’ve observed things this week.

i completely take the points made though, this reflects so badly on our fanbase. i just don’t understand why people can be like that, and so boldly too. i feel so bad for mark - a good person trying to do good things being the subject of people’s anger. it’s not on.

i can’t wait to return to a place where the football is our only potential annoyance and not anything else (although, three points tomorrow i reckon) 🙏
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Dana, is the upper case key missing off of your keyboard? (only kidding) 🤣
 
newyddion said:
This could be the ideal chance for you chaps to have a little perspective on the issue, apply a bit of critical thinking..
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That’s exactly what we’ve done. Shame you can’t see that

I’ll tell you where perspective is needed, when confronting and abusing someone that’s spent years trying to help Boro fans
 
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No need for the abuse personally directed at him and others

Putting that aside, I didn`t even know he was the chair.

Do the MSF have a newsletter/blog/website where we can go and read what they are doing in support of the fans in these meetings?

Never hear anything other than titbits from Rob, which isn`t really good enough for a forum representing the fans (if that`s what the MSF was set up for)
 
If boro had dealt with the whole thing differently the abuse wouldn’t have been received. The club enabled idiots

That’s not an excuse to say the behaviour is acceptable, it isn’t. that just identifying the root cause of what happened.

I think people given what has happened should be able to challenge, constructively, what the supporters group do, as they act on our behalf

Growth mindset n all that
 
boroboy6872 said:
No need for the abuse personally directed at him and others

Putting that aside, I didn`t even know he was the chair.

Do the MSF have a newsletter/blog/website where we can go and read what they are doing in support of the fans in these meetings?

Never hear anything other than titbits from Rob, which isn`t really good enough for a forum representing the fans (if that`s what the MSF was set up for)
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