Fan Engagement Has Been Woeful
A couple of years ago, Peter Lawwell instigated a policy that caused much sniggering amongst myself and some of my cohorts.
He started invited select groups of fans to come to Celtic Park for “tea and biscuits”.
I’m sure it made a lot of folk feel special, and valued, and made it look like he was paying attention to what the fans thought.
But the real objective was pretty easy to wrap the brain around.
Lawwell was trying to play favourites. He was trying to keep certain people “on message”, first by identifying who was and wasn’t pliable, and by extension making it easier to brand the rest of us as malcontented rabble rousers, or people incapable of understanding how his world worked.
It’s an insulting suggestion, but it got traction amongst the support.
Every criticism from any quarter was dressed up as an attack on Celtic as a whole.
We were “doing the media’s job for them” or pursuing agendas of our own.
It was not simple scrutiny of his position and his job performance … it was personal.
What absolute bullshit.
But for a while he got away with it.
And what was the consequence? The wholly intended consequence? Division. One group of fans who wanted answers and another group telling us to sit down and shut up. Those fault lines still exist today, making any kind of co-ordinated effort by the fans difficult at best … and this, of course, was the plan all along.
In the time since various proposals have been mooted, many springing from his tea and biscuits meetings, including one to set up a “Celtic Membership Scheme”, the simple objective of which is to get more money from the supporters in exchange for … nothing. No authority, no influence, but perhaps the creation of a talking shop which he and the board can control, and if they can’t do that they can at least ignore.
The other consequence, of course, again intended, is that it will create a two-tier support; those who buy in, and therefore are considered “real fans” and those who don’t … who can be ignored even more completely, whether they’re season ticket holders or not.
Now even that plan seems to have gone by the boards, especially as it’s been met with a barrage of questions and demands from those who’ve been asked what they think that the Membership comes with actual clout. Which is the last thing Lawwell wants.
The appointment of a Supporter Liaison Officer seemed, on the surface, to be a positive step and I have yet to meet a single person who doesn’t think John Paul Taylor is a class act and an excellent guy. His own efforts have to be applauded, because he bends over backwards for the fans and always tries to answer their concerns.
But he’s also pretty clearly being used as a human shield, a buffer between the fans and those who no longer believe they need to answer questions themselves.
Which is why JP had to field so many questions in the last few days to which he didn’t have answers.
Now we get our information from leaks to the press and, occasionally, those websites which are still on board with the Moneyball nonsense.
Overall, it stinks to high heaven.
We get told only what the club wants us to know.
Tough questions don’t get answers.
Difficult decisions aren’t explained to us.
We’re given the bare minimum of information about the club’s long-term planning, probably because everything’s been done on a short term basis.
All of this, of course, has contributed to the growing number of fans who no longer think the club belongs to them.
This, of course, affects the number who still go to games.