Well put.
I don't agree with everything they've done, but I can stop and think, and at least understand the reasons why.
Communication obviously isn't their strong point, but nobody skilled in this area has come forward to help them, meaning they're stuck with what they've got. If anyone good at PR got involved it'd be an absolute godsend for them because clearly their hearts are in the right place.
Correct, and neither am I skilled in it but two minutes thinking would suggest a better (and more honest) way to write the last para would be something like :
'The club have taken a decision which ensures that we go to a stadium with some [25,000] seats of which some 90% are available for Spurs fans. A decision to reverse the tie would have given Spurs fans approximately 10% of this figure (2,100 tickets) and any stadium inside London giving maybe only 8,000 tickets (as all other bigger stadiums are involved in the LC draw).
Whilst we recognise that the location of the stadium is not ideal, we believe that the combination of location and availability of seats is as a good as or better than most other options so there is much to commend it.
The MK Stadium is a muti-use stadium however its core tenant is MK Dons which THST disapproves of due to its change of location from Wimbledon, and some fans will not be happy with this choice'.
Surely this type of statement :
1. Makes it clear that the stadium option chosen is as good or better than others in giving the number of tickets whilst location is not ideal - so fans should recognise this is as good as it gets, any other solution will disappoint as many fans as it pleases
2. Makes the point that THST doesn't like the MK Dons connection to the stadium.
3. Avoids the shitstorm THST created for themselves by suggesting a boycott (my word). If THST were going to suggest this then why did they not include in
their survey of fans a question such as
' Do you agree with THST that under no circumstances should the club consider MK Stadium due to its connection to Wimbledon FC ?'
If the survey results came back with a majority if fans supporting either an MK boycott or that fans didn't care, then THST would know if this was a personal thing for THST or a genuine fan concern. As it is, they've made themselves look prats because there is no evidence other than that the MK Dons issue is a personal one and very likely the average fan is not so concerned as to boycott the match (but we'll see)
As an aside I have a friend, now in his 50's who is an AFC Wimbledon fan who I asked about MK Dons who said that he was no longer bothered by MKDons as they long ago returned all the Wimbledon FC trophies to AFC Wimbeledon - but some, probably only a sizeable minority, were still concerned about MK Dons.
Today of course many AFC Wimbledon fans are pleased that they are a league ABOVE MK Dons and have broken ground on their stadium build - so a very changed future for AFC versus MK.
I've yet to ask him how he feels about Kingstoneon whose future is now in doubt from AFC Wimbledon's stadium build....