Tonight (16/Dec/13) is the second meeting of the Newcastle United Fans 
Forum. It will proceed without the Newcastle United Supporters Trust, originally invited by the club to be a permanent member of the Fans Forum because of a ban imposed because of a trumped up charge on a petty breach in protocol.
The statement from the NUST below details the entirely arbitrary nature of the ban, the dubious reasoning behind it and the club’s intransigence in working to secure a solution which might allow the Fans Forum to proceed against its modest objectives.
As you will know, the Newcastle United Supporters Trust is the only members-based, properly constituted association of Newcastle United supporters. It has high standards of governance through which it is accountable to Trust members. It is plugged into the Supporters Direct movement in itself funded and supported by the FA and Premier League as well as government. The Newcastle United Supporters Trust is an associate member of the Football Supporters Federation, which in itself is represented on the Football Association’s council. There is no other Newcastle United supporters representative body organised in this way.
The statement below also includes a link to a copy of a letter sent to Lee Charnley (Club Secretary) and John Irving (Finance Director) from Kevin Miles, Chief Executive of the Football Supporters’ Federation who played an intrinsic role in the establishment of the Fans Forum and who the club was keen to reference at its launch. We are unaware of any reply to this letter (dated 29/Nov/13) from the club. Charnley and Irving are widely believed to have responsibility for making the decision to impose the NUST ban.
With that in mind, we call upon all supporters currently intending to participate in the Fans Forum tonight to show solidarity with the Newcastle United Supporters Trust to boycott this meeting. That boycott should remain in place until the Newcastle United Supporters Trust is fully re-instated.
We would ask those Fans Forum members to consider their consciences, reflect upon the injustice of this ban and stand shoulder to shoulder with their fellow Newcastle United supporters in the shape of the NUST. Consider what the Fans Forum now looks like to fellow supporters ‘ simply a polite talking shop where those who do not ask the difficult questions are allowed into the inner sanctum of St James’ Park in order to be patronised for a couple of hours as part of what increasingly looks like a superficial PR exercise.
Do not allow yourselves to be used in this way. Do not allow your fellow supporters to be picked off this way.
BOYCOTT THE FANS FORUM!
This call to boycott the Fans Forum is completely independent of the Newcastle United Supporters Trust. It is the independent view of true faith acting alone. ‘
Michael Martin, true faith Editor.’
Me finks its a good idea
I think this is a really bad idea. We are crying our for engagement with the club so just because the NUST is banned – and, on reading the notes of the meeting and the mis-match in dates on the NUST website, I’m not sure it is because of a petty breach of protocol – then all representatives should boycott it?
And now the meeting has been cancelled. So great, no representation at all.
This sounds like a very knee-jerk decision made my the NUST. We as Newcastle fans have kicked and screamed to have a voice at our club under the current regime. All be it a low scale, we have this in the NUFC Fans Forum. To then encourage supporters not affiliated with the NUST to boycott and not have a voice is very fickle in my opinion. Instead, those fans not affiliated with the NUST that are attending the Fans Forum should be encouraged to have the NUST reinstatement on the top of their agenda. A boycott is very childish and will in all circumstances be counter productive. Grow up, genlemen.
I think fans organisations should just leave the club to its own devices. There is no evidence whatsoever that the club hierarchy is really interested in giving fans a role of any meaning or purpose; far better to recognise and accept this and to use the time before regime change at SJP to create a coherent representative voice for fans which covers the various factions which, currently, are little more than an unruly rabble which the club finds it easy to marginalise or ignore.