The original Broncos Official Supporter's Group was chosen on a vote basis, from the first 50 members to sign up, and the voters were from the supporters and no one else.
It was really orientated to try and help fill an activity gap, with supportive activities, perhaps on a match day, to try to help the club.
The club had found prior to that, that it was difficult to get much of a level of co-operation and support.
I'll give my views on the BOSG.
I personally felt that Brian and his Wife made an ideal Chairman and Secretary; they were retired and had previously fulfilled the roles at London Broncos. I wasn't sure they were well known enough at the club. Thus I was supportive of Andy being a co-Chairman as he had stated he would also be retiring from working life and thus be available and I felt that he and Lesley would be a friendly male and female face on a matchday.
The other members of the Group I saw more as offering a specific skill or experience; for instance someone with a financial background could be a treasurer or someone who had fund raising experience could raise funds.
For things to work the Group needed the Chairman, co-Chairman and Secretary to be working regularly in their own time and for the Club to provide a trusted leadership figure with ongoing direction and openness with a deep commitment to the role, and someone who could hear criticism and want to respond to it and better the club.
Within the first few weeks, it turned out that the Chairman and Secretary were not seen as being compatible with the club representatives; the co-Chairman did not retire from working life and committee members would simply drop out. Other people would chime in and claim to have a skill but not move things forward in any way, only to disappear, without even any reasoning, yet feel free to criticise despite their proven negligence and indolence.
There were also people within the group who did have a skill but it could realistically be best placed or only done a matchday.
It was difficult, and I felt by this time last year that the Group could likely only move forward properly if either the BOSG set out a list of issues, or the club set out an overall strategy, and that there was a commitment to move forward on at least one of the two.
If neither happened, then it would be a talking shop only and might even be seen as making the club worse.
It didn't happen; my paper was simply disregarded after point one and a fallacious view given on it being wrong. It was not wrong. The data fully supported my argument and nothing other than an opinion was given.
As time passed, the club began to be seen as somewhere you couldn't discuss things; more about banning and blocking than discussing and the disconnect between club representatives and the supporter base grew, and paranoia grew.
I personally tried to hold the club to account, although not being the lead on things. I put a series of forthright opinions to the club around a suite of different topics as diverse as the AFC Wimbledon move, club lottery, fan engagement, pricing and even a proposal for a different club representative to interact with the BOSG. But as time passed it was clear that no such strategy would ever be shared with the BOSG and that there was little interest in going beyond lip service.
I think over the last 18 months events have not helped, that is for sure, but I hold the senior leadership team at the Broncos to account for their responses.
I do not think the club's media manager should have been furloughed and I do not think he should have been made redundant and I do not think there was anyone capable of replacing him at the club, on even a temporary basis.
I do not think tickets should have been sold at far higher prices for a move that was never going to take place that season and in my opinion the price has doubled for half the quality. I think the price was too low, but you cannot take away everything of value and double the price.
I do not think the existing players, including the club trained players, needed to wait almost the entire season to be told the club was going part time a week or two before the end of the season. This no doubt caused alienation and player departures, well beyond what I think the club had expected.
I think the club could have retained the majority of Walters, Hindmarsh, Sam Davis, Jones, Meadows, Boafo, Hodson and Ogden without the club doing things this way and I also feel that the likes of Fozard, Aston and Sammut were all retainable as I cannot believe anyone has broken the bank to get them.
Anyone who understands the costs of London understands that you would not get players to move to London on little money, unless they were either lower level, locally based or somehow managed to find a high paid job.
I do not think the club trained players still at the club are standouts; this includes the halfbacks who did not set-up tries for excellent players like Hankinson and Miski and are unlikely to do so for lesser players.
I do not think Leyland, Horsman, Blakemore and Oakley would be first team regulars even in the top half of the third division.
The likes of Latu, Macani, Palumbo, the Greenhalgh brothers, Dalton Grant, Thomas, Tuliatu, Coates and Ramsey were unlikely to all be of a Championship standard.
I do not see how Coleman could have been appointed in the first place. He had a win streak at London Skolars in 2017 when the weaker southern based teams were all in the league. 2018 was poor. 2019, he had another win streak, which ended in May 2019. After that he won one game over a year later against Coventry in May 2020. Apart from that Coleman has beaten only West Wales.
Broncos haven't won under him, a streak that is 6 losses, and 8 losses as a club. How could anyone rate him as the best available option, surely he cannot be seen as a better option than Tsang, Mbu, Ward or even Powell who were all locally based.
It just doesn't make sense. It is a very hard sell.
Regarding "help" there seems to be an army of people in orange Jackets with no specific skill, paid to be about on a matchday, when there is zero chance of crowd trouble, who could be allocated to specific roles after 3pm.
Also I do not see why the club cannot get the non-selected players to fulfill the matchday roles; I would not for instance expect Wellington Albert to dress up as Dusty, but I cannot see why the non-selected players can't do the administrative roles like manning the ticket office.
I think as things stand the way forward for the club is to declare an amnesty for the dozens or hundreds of blocked supporters and to bring in a friendly face to try to win back them. The club needs that person to be focused upon the customer experience.
I would be comfortable about supporting the club, even on a matchday, if the wrong people go and the right people are in place.
I suspect that there are others like me.
I pray the club can start to do things right again.
