This month we hear from Oliver Holtaway.
Q. Can you remember and tell us about the first football match you attended?
OH: I’ve supported Bath City since 2000, when a mate of mine took me to the Boxing Day match. I was 20, and up to that point football was just something I watched on TV – I’d lived in Bath my whole childhood without ever having heard of the club. It was pretty much love at first sight, I was very attracted to the local, down-to-earth, communal feeling.
Q. What trust are you a member of?
OH: I’ve been a member of Bath City Supporters Society since about 2010. Work took me away from Bath, and becoming a trust member was a great way to keep my connection to the club going.
Q. Are you a board member of your trust, and if so what is your role and how long have you been involved?
OH: I’ve just stepped down after a two-year term on my trust board, during which time I also served as Secretary, in order to focus on a new role as the club’s partnerships manager.
Q. What have been your major achievements at the trust over the past year?
OH: That’s an easy one – last year we raised £365,000 in a community share offer and acquired a majority stake in the club, making Bath City FC one of the UK’s newest community-owned clubs. Since then we’ve appointed a full-time general manager, set up a more professional working group structure for volunteers and competed in the SD Brian Lomax Cup – although sadly we were outclassed by a determined Exeter City side! Overall, we are making progress in raising the club’s profile and building new connections in Bath.
Q. What first made you want to get involved with Supporters Direct?
OH: Supporters Direct was an immense help to us when we pulled together our initial community share offer in 2015. I was heavily involved in the drafting of the prospectus and had a good working relationship with James Mathie, our “caseworker”. I was elected in 2016 for a three-year term – I wanted to do my bit in ensuring that SD is around in the future to give clubs like mine the help they need to secure their futures.
Q. What do you see for the future of support engagement?
OH: I really want to see more collaboration between trusts and particularly member-owned clubs, and I’m confident that SD’s new online hub will help on this front. Having attended a couple of SD Europe conferences, I’m amazed at how much clubs and trusts from completely different leagues and completely different places can learn from each other.
More broadly, I think there’s an opportunity to show that supporter trusts are about citizenship and cooperation as much as they are about sport. SD’s roots as part of the cooperative movement are important.
Q. Apart from football do you follow any other sports?
OH: I’m a migrant to the UK, so my original family sporting allegiance is to the New York Giants. Football is definitely my favourite sport now, but I also love Test cricket..