Disabled fans ticket communication

I'll have a fiver on Abdullatif.

Maybe, but it's still speculation.

Not aimed at you, but this is just how rumours get out of hand, one person's "maybe" becomes and Internet fact within a few posts and before we know it, there are calls for sackings.

I was a bit gobsmacked when I saw the communication, but thinking about it a bit more it does seem that 'normal' was just a poor choice of word and related to the ticket type, not the holder.

The whole thing is badly thought out though.
Should have said, 'After feedback, we have taken on board some concerns and decided to issue cards to disabled ticket holders. In hindsight we should have looked into potential issues before the announcement'

Instead it comes across as:-

'2 other clubs charge £20, we didn't have to do it, be grateful'

Looks like the SC tweet has also now been deleted. Although the previous message (saying they will report back when the club responds) is still there.

And thats why you get out in front of it.

Could have killed it off before it got there

I am not sure how anyone can interpret the statement to mean anything other than "normal fans" = "able-bodied fans".
and you could quite easily see how that might offend some disabled or older fans.  It is very clumsy language.



Although I must admit I hadn't considered that the statement in the e-mail to the SC might have been originally written by someone for whom English is not their native language; and so a gaff like this might be excusable. 

I think it likely that it has been forwarded without due consideration of the language/tone used and the person who wrote it originally had (albeit implicitly) expected it would get appropriately vetted and reworded.



If there is any criticism of the SC here it might be that they didn't detect the potentially offensive implication that able-bodied = normal and disabled = abnormal and so publish the statement verbatim without politely pushing back to Rovers for a more customer-friendly response that they can share with fans.

But their responsibility is to channel members' concerns / complaints to the club and share the outcome. They should not be expected to reword the response.. in fact; if they did then they might be opening themselves up to trouble! 

Not sure what they would hope to gain by being mischievous? Or why they would be happy to create a storm?
A good relationship between Bristol Rovers and the Supporters Club would be for everyone's benefit.

Far more likely the SC just trusted that the response was formal and appropriate without too much scrutiny and relayed it to members/supporters (via their website) as it was received.

I don't know what the HR policy is at Rovers when it comes to electronic communications, but I suspect that when you send an e-mail from your work account to an external account you are representing the company and it becomes a formal, public communication (as e-mails can be shared).

They should not be expecting or relying the recipient of the e-mail to re-word it before sharing. It might well be considered public domain as soon as it has been posted.

I’ve avoided having anything to do with the SC over the years so no idea what motivates them or what their relations are with those running the club. Clearly the comms from someone in the club were poorly worded but seemingly not an ‘official’ release and so ideally shouldn’t have just been put out word for word by the SC - hopefully an innocent misjudgment! 
Lessons to be learned from both parties - from Rovers perspective ban any direct comms with SC and fans as even with the best of intentions can clearly backfire. Unfortunately, this will see people moan about “not the Rovers I know” and “I remember when I could just email TG and he’d get back to me….”