System works for all parties

GREATER supporter involvement in the running of football clubs has always been an issue that excites fans the length and breadth of the UK.

Better supporter involvement and the essential creation of strong lasting mechanisms for engagement, and improved communication, decision making and the trust it brings with it benefits all involved in a football club.

Supporter involvement provides the potential for a club to better understand its supporters and to better leverage those relationships in furtherance of its financial, business and community objectives.

This involvement can occur in different forms and for different reasons, and at Stockport County the Club and the Supporters Cooperative have, over recent seasons, developed a working relationship that….err…. works. Our long established policy of ‘constructive engagement’ with the Club board played a valuable in County’s National North Championship season!

On a wider scale I am not greatly sure that much progress has been made, particularly higher up the football pyramid where the influence of ‘here today, possibly gone tomorrow’ ownership of clubs seems paramount.

Thankfully at our level and below, clubs are more closely linked to the communities they exist in and in County’s case those links are assiduously attended to with local schools and sports clubs encouraged to get involved at Edgeley Park, thus helping to build the fan base up with all the safeguards for the future that brings .

Ultimately, supporters’ representation on club boards is not desirable but probably inevitable also in the long run.

For the Supporters Cooperative we will strive to maintain close and meaningful relations with the Club, to whom we will continue to faithfully represent County Supporters interests and concerns.

We will be staging a membership drive soon, so please consider joining us and helping us as we go.