According to an article from Banbury's website regarding their ownership by supporters:
The Club’s objectives are to benefit the community by:
enhancing the social, cultural and economic value of the Club to its Communities and by acting as a responsible custodian of the club for future generations;
upholding the mutual ownership of the Club operating democratically, fairly and transparently;
ensuring the Club operates with financial responsibility enabling the Club to be run for the long term interest of the Community;
providing sporting facilities and opportunities regardless of age, income, ethnicity, gender, disability, sexuality, religious or moral belief; and
playing at the highest level possible, but always operating in a financially responsible and prudent manner.
It strikes me that Hitchin is currently being run with some very similar objectives with the last of those five being particularly pertinent.
Jacqueline Mary wrote: ↑Sun Mar 27, 2022 5:35 pm
But let’s be under no illusion. The current owner. the current management and indeed many of the supporters want to maintain the status quo. Mid table mediocrity at the end of every season is the goal and they’re having to work quite hard to even reach those dizzy heights right now. It’s always going to be Groundhog Day with the current set up as it is right now.
Jackie, I value the fact that supporters can come on this forum and give their views even if I disagree, such as the paragraph above, but it would be great to hear on what basis you believe that the owner, management and many supporters want mid-table mediocrity and if Andy, Mark, Adam, Josh or Michael admit that's been the plan over the last few years I'll gladly admit I was wrong in believing they were trying their hardest to push the club forward.
Jacqueline Mary wrote: ↑Sun Mar 06, 2022 9:36 am
So you were eager to update the relegation stats while we were winning but you’re not so eager while we’re continually losing.
The manager must be in dream land right now. No matter how many games we lose, the only thing that matters is the club getting right behind a manager who from his game management this season is clearly not bothered about dragging this club down to Central Division and if we do miraculously escape the drop it’s still been a dreadful season on the pitch.
It's the postings such as the above that understandably wind people up, easy to write, but not exactly accurate. Forgive me for resorting to a stat, but after what everyone would agree was a terrible start to the season, over the last 20 games, in effect half a season, Hitchin have W7, D6, L7, GD+8 Pts 27. This may fall into your other favourite of "mid-table mediocrity", but it demonstrates the effort shown by all concerned to become competitive in all games to try and maintain our Premier division status. Surely it would have been easier and more cost-effective to gracefully give up and be relegated as you suggest?
As I've said before on here, over more than 40 years of supporting this club I have seen many seasons with far less to be optimistic about than this season and to sweepingly say this has been a dreadful season on the pitch is nonsense as far as I'm concerned when you've seen some of the rubbish ones I've seen.
As Kate, Chris N. and others have said, the feeling at the club with the greatly improved facilities, a large number of willing volunteers, amazing attendances with many new supporters is as good as I can remember. I have no doubt that very few Hitchin supporters come to the ground wanting anything other than a win and to see the team going as high as they can. Some may be more desperate than others and quite a few probably aren't that fussed which division we are in as long as they can meet their friends at the ground and take their kids for a safe, inclusive, friendly afternoon out. Not that far from the aims of Banbury.
