Supporters Charter Group Apology

[Foreveram]

48 minutes ago, simmoram1995 said:

Hi David , I’m a new member I really appreciate what you do and represent the best interests of a plethora of different fans and i for one understand how difficult it must have been. I look forward to reading your well thought account and I’d love to get involved in all things Derby as much as I can 

If you’ve got any spare change you could put in an offer for the club

[Mostyn6]

34 minutes ago, BaaLocks said:

This (upward finger emoji).

☝️ 

type ‘one’

[BaaLocks]

40 minutes ago, Mostyn6 said:

☝️

type ‘one’

1

[I am Ram]

Twitter should of been called Tw#ter, it's the modern day toilet wall. You've tried to do the right thing for club and forum, keep your chin up. Back to the football, keep calm and carry on.

[Mostyn6]

18 minutes ago, BaaLocks said:

1

???

on iPhone, type the word “one”, then the emoji will appear. Then tap the emoji and it will replace the text. 

[Premier ram]

David , chin up mate , lets all get on with what we should be doing and supporting Wayne and his players , the off field stuff we can do nothing about , thanks for attending , the abuse was cowardly , lets show these players how much we love DCFC COYR

[Dordogne-Ram]

@David nothing to apologise for, the longer the silence went on for, the more difficult the situation for you personally became apparent.

Although an infrequent poster on here, the value of the forum over my 10 years or so  of membership has been incalculable to me, and apart from the BBC match reports, is my ONLY way of keeping in touch with news of the Rams. 

In that context, I and many others on here owe you an immense debt of gratitude - long may it continue .

Athol

[BucksRam]

No need for this apology @Davidbut I can understand from your perspective why you may have felt it necessary to help with your own closure.  

Anyone who gave (or still gives) you stick over this can frankly duck off and support Notts Forest. You, and others, were placed in an impossible position really with the expectations of every fan hanging on the output, no doubt hoping for something amazing.  If I'm being honest, I was refreshing my browser so fast I probably looked like I was playing Track 'n Field, but I couldn't care now.  Move on.  The season's kicked off and we're not bottom!

As for Twitter, anyone who posts vitriol behind an anonymous name is low-life chicken-poo.  I'm on Twitter, but under my real name.Sadly Twitter fails abysmally at policing it. 

Most of us on here are under anonymous names to be fair, but the difference here is you and the other mods police it well.  And to be honest, if anyone had a real gripe with anything I said I'd be happy to pick up the phone to them or have a Zoom call to chat it through.  I live by never saying anything I'd not be prepared to say to someone's face and it's something I've drilled into my kids as they've started using WhatsApp, Snapchat etc. 

Anyway, enough said.  Keep up the great work you do on here.

[DCFC27]

I think the whole thing has been miss handled by the club and certainly not the fault of anyone attending. 
The meetings should be broadcasted with selected fans asking questions such as David. Surely a more appropriate way of communicating with he fan base, surely anything Mel can say to a few fans should be open to all fans. Again poor from the club and poor from Mel. 
 

[DavesaRam]

One David, there’s only one David, there’s only one David ..................

 

 

He’s one of our own, he’s one of our own,

DAVID,

He’s one of our own!

 

 

Thanks, mate. ???????

[bcnram]

It seems to me that everything to do with the club is in an impossible position until a takeover or significant investment is made. I have no issue with Mel, he backed his managers and recruitment team and they made bad or risky decisions collectively. 
The difficult situation the cub is in is always going to make reporting openly a hard thing to do. 
As regards David’s situation. Thanks for attending for us, nothing to beat yourself up about or to my mind even apologise for. 
I personally would not have a problem with a line being drawn underneath it and say no info is coming out. 
your own sanity is far more important. ?
 

[Gritstone Ram]

I’m not sure what people were expecting. We’re just mushrooms kept in the dark and fed poo.

[Ellafella]

@DavidI’m really sorry to read you’ve been through that experience. It’s dreadful and wrong. Nobody has anything but respect and gratitude for you and certainly no need to apologise. Well done for the very dignified way you’ve dealt with it all. 
 

[I am Ram]

1 hour ago, DavesaRam said:

One David, there’s only one David, there’s only one David ..................

 

 

He’s one of our own, he’s one of our own,

DAVID,

He’s one of our own!

 

 

Thanks, mate. ???????

Phew, we don't need two Davids.

[Stive Pesley]

I hadn't seen any of the online abuse you got David, but I thought this tweet from Nigel Clough was bang out of order ?

Quote

"I'd like a rep in these meetings who in the 89th minute doesn't run off to get his train, which is what David did"

"David tries and runs around but doesn't make very good decisions on the forum. He has been with us ten years and he is still doing things like that. So he can go back to Grimsby or wherever he came from, I am not really bothered, until he learns the game."

 

 

[Miggins]

16 hours ago, David said:

I just want to apologise for the delay, my absence, my handling of the situation and try to explain what has happened.

The meeting on Wednesday was scheduled to end at 8.45pm, my last train home was 9.33pm, I slipped out just after 9pm as I didn’t have clothes, medication, toiletries with me as I wasn’t planning on staying overnight.

When the meeting had finished, an agreement was made where one statement would be written and signed off by all groups, this is the first time anything like this had been agreed, I was under the impression we would be allowed to report back as normal.

Being completely unaware of this, whilst waiting for my train I saw a conversation take place on my Twitter timeline discussing the meeting minutes, when would they be out.

I replied, that the meeting minutes were not taken and we would be sharing the information ourselves, which as I say I was under the impression would be allowed, why else attend? I thought I was being helpful.

Now I can see on reflection I was clearly naive in not appreciating the number of fans waiting online for what was said at the meeting, would see the tweet whilst was part of a conversation, which was also public and could be seen and shared by others. The tweet blew up online having been retweeted, I’m not exaggerating when I say maybe hundred or more replies, some abusive to the point where I had to turn notifications off as my phone was freezing with as I came back into an area with phone signal.

On the forum I did pre warn members not to expect anything Wednesday evening, the minutes can sometimes take a few days to a couple of weeks before being released. I was going with the intention of asking the club if the minutes could be released within 24 hours or that we could release the information immediately. Obviously once we was told the minutes would not be taken all that went out the window and believed we was free to report back immediately, and that was the plan.

Again, I was clearly naive to the fact fans on Twitter would not be aware of this, so when I wasn’t replying to all the tweets with thumbs up or down if it’s good news, or are we going to have a club next week the levels of abuse increased, despite my plea for being understanding I wasn’t in the position to do so.

With my write up, I had no intention of adding any personal opinion, it would be just what was said and allow you all to read and take it as you will.

As you will be well aware, all fans see things differently and I didn’t want to raise any expectations or disappoint fans, then receive more abuse as it wasn’t what they were expecting.

I put myself in this situation through naivety, but I don’t accept that the abuse was warranted at all, I have removed the twitter account from my devices and will no longer be active on that account, opting now for a private account as I have no interest in twitter fame.

I would seriously urge anyone that did send me abusive tweets to have a think how they talk to people online and their demands, if this is this what celebrities have to deal with on a daily basis, I’m glad I’m just a nobody!

Punjabi Rams, who I honestly can’t thank enough stepped in and put some tweets out from their account to give some information in my defence. You guys are awesome, didn’t need to do that but again, I honestly can’t thank you enough. Quick plug www.punjabirams.co.uk, @PunjabiRams on Twitter, go give them a follow if you are on there.

On the train home I started to do the write up on my notes app, realising I need to get this out asap, first thing to defuse the situation I felt I had created.

Thursday morning, as I was consulting my notes and finishing off the write up, there was a few things I wanted to fact check with the club were totally accurate, there has been times where things have been misheard in the past (Boycie ahem) and needed correcting, I didn’t want this to happen. We’re human, mistakes can happen, I believed I had time to ensure there were none.

I decided, and this was not requested by the club but to send my write up to them, asking if they could read it over and everything I had written was totally accurate, leaving ??? <—— fact checks where I was a little cautious over.

They agreed and I again naively yet again assumed that this would be back with me in a few hours……despite the previous night listening to just how busy they have been.

Now whilst I understand and totally agree that this meeting is important, the club staff are as I’m sure you can imagine really busy, now I need to really stress here that this is in no way the fault of the club, this is on me 100%.

No tweet, no forum post, none of this situation exists.

Meanwhile The Supporters Charter Group are scratching their heads as to why I’ve gone it alone, I can only apologise to them also, as I say I was under the impression that we would all be reporting back ourselves which I have explained privately with them.

A single statement isn’t something I would have been personally happy with but that is what was agreed in my absence.

I haven’t felt comfortable coming back on the forum if I'm honest, ignoring the fact I insinuated what was said at the meeting would be out Thursday on the forum, I feel like I have let you all down and for that I’m sorry.

Just to add, this apology wasn’t asked for, it's something I feel is owed to you all.

Should someone have gone that could have stayed all evening? Ideally yes, although Paul (Boycie) was unavailable to attend. Since the formation of 2017 it has only been either myself or Paul that has attended, I didn’t feel it would be right to send someone new which in hindsight was the correct call, they may have also not been able to attend until the end of what I’m led to believe turned out to be almost a 4 hour long meeting, putting themselves unwittingly into a similar situation I have.

I know you are all frustrated, the accusations of attention seeking, sitting on information, teasing, trying to get more views, followers etc. and even censorship on the forum are simply not true, they come from people that do not know me or how the forum is run at all, which is disappointing hearing it said by members that have been on the forum for a number of years now.

Finally, I do want to say thank you to those who have sent supportive texts, PM’s, DM’s, tweets you name it over the last few days, despite asking to be given time, it’s you who I put the hours in for, I will learn from this and work on handling things better in the future.

I would also like to thank the moderators who have been trying their best to keep on top of the situation, without them this forum would have crashed and burned over the last few days so please be respectful to them, even if at times you do not agree with decisions they have made. 

David

 

I've been away for a couple of days and so I'm 17 hours behind! Just wanted to post something before I read the replies from the wonderful forum fans, although I think I already know what they are saying. ? Thanks for your post and thanks for the detailed explanation, all of which is perfectly understandable. Not sure how you could improve on handling things better in the future. I thought you handled things fine this time round and not your fault that it was not all plain sailing due to things beyond your control. Certainly not your fault or DCFC. Really sad that you have had to put up with unwarranted crap. Totally out of order and undeserved comments, lacking understanding, moderation and common decency. Ignore! I don't respect those who are  abusive and I ignore their opinions which are more a reflection on themselves than those they choose to criticize. Keep well, David and thanks for this forum which is enjoyed by so many! 

 

[Derbydave96]

Very rarely post anything, but felt the need to chime in here.

Thanks for everything you do @David running this place and representing forum members.

As a ram living away from Derby, the forum really is the lifeline that keeps me connected to the club and up to date with the latest goings on - I’m sure many other longer distance rams fans would say the same.

No need to apologise & remember there’s lots of Derby fans & forum users (even the very quiet ones!) right behind you!

Up the Rams 

[silhillian]

No apologies needed as far as I'm concerned. Greatly appreciate the work you do on this forum. For people who don't live anywhere near Derby this forum is our lifeline. Thanks.

[Mostyn6]

I’ll accept @Davidapology and forgive him only if he updates us with a photo of both Jax and his Jax tattoo in the pets thread..

[Eddie]

18 hours ago, MuespachRam said:

I only got to….Medication.? Got problems down below son, can’t perform.? Speak to @DarkFruitsRam7 he will give you a few tips…

Are you insinuating there hasn't been a rooster-up somewhere?

(anticipating the filter will remove the impact of that statement a little)