Support for protest
Following a poll of its members, the Wolves 1877 Trust has decided to support the Old Gold Pack (OGP) initiative which encourages fans not to take their seats for the first 15 minutes of Monday’s Manchester United game.
In a high profile game which will be beamed across the world, we believe that an empty ground would be a powerful signal to the club’s executives of fans’ anger right now.
Old Gold Packs message to supporters
Although this is not an initiative led by the Trust, we want fans to be as safe as possible. If you do decide to take part and not take your seat, bear in mind the following:
Some fans will not want to take part. Please accept and respect their decision. We’re all Wolves fans at the end of the day.
The concourses of the ground are not designed to hold everyone at the same time. Please listen to and follow the advice of any club stewards.
Keep clear of entrances, walkways and turnstiles.
If you feel unsafe at any time, please report your concerns to a club steward.
We also want to take this chance to note that the Trust is being asked for its direct support for a number of protest initiatives being taken by fans. There are lots of ideas around and it’s good that we supporters see that we can make a difference.
At the Trust, we’re all fans ourselves so we recognise the anger with the direction the club is headed in.
We are continuing direct dialogue with senior officials of the club and submitted a number of questions at the recent Fan Advisory Board meeting. We await a copy of the meeting notes, with its official responses from the club, before deciding what our next steps should be.
As a reminder, we want meaningful change in the way that the club is currently being run, and we want to see a strategic plan that recognises the need for investment in both the team and stadium infrastructure, rather than stagnation and decline.
Directly organising, or supporting, a protest of any type is a serious step to be taken by any democratically constituted organisation such as the Trust, whose primary role is to represent its members’ views through structured dialogue meetings. As board members, it’s us volunteers who would be held legally responsible if anything went wrong. So we will only begin organising the kind of protests you see at West Ham when we can be confident that :
a) they will make the impact we want and
b) when we can organise them legally, safely and peacefully. The West Ham ones have taken a full year to get to the level they are at now.
In the meantime, we recognise and support the right of individuals to peacefully 'protest' as they wish, and we will continue to seek the views of our members on our future actions.