Joe Dunne leaves and Statement from the Club

Joe Dunne

We would like to extend a much overdue thanks to our ex player Joe Dunne for his service to Stafford Rangers and apologise to him on a personal level for not communicating to you the fans in a timely manner. We were genuinely sorry to see you go but a decision was made to go down a different road by both parties, that is football. Both club and player must accept this and move forward. Joe, we wish you all the very best at wherever you play your football in the future and hope everything you do on and off the pitch meets your needs and goals.

Club Communication

Stafford Rangers Football club accepts that communication recently in terms of the team and players was poor and we apologise for this. We have tried over the last couple of years to ensure information gets out to fans as soon as possible highlighting issues both on and off the pitch that we believe you should be aware of, last week we failed due to several factors.

This lack of information then led to false rumours and interpretation on social media that enabled certain individuals to fuel the fire creating unnecessary tension and criticism of the club at an already difficult time. If information was provided quickly and clearly this may have diminished the hostile reactions and criticism we received, we will try our best to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

Every player, manager, director, volunteer and fan are frustrated by our position in the league, everyone wants success, we understand your frustration and disappointment and share it. When things are bad, we need to stick together and get behind the club.

Your club is run, managed and driven in the main by people who give their time up for nothing and we do not have large numbers of people to call upon. It is always hard, always challenging. If you would like to be part of the solution, write to the chairman in the first instance, should you want to help on match days or want to join the board.

We understand passion and accept that everyone has a right to their views and can express them however nothing justifies the reaction during and after the Bamber Bridge game from a very small number of people acting in quite frankly an unforgivable and disgusting manner. Please do not let anyone justify using aggressive, inflammatory and appalling language and threatening behaviour that was evidenced at the end of the game by saying they are passionate about the club. That is simply not good enough.

Unacceptable threatening behaviour was used by several individuals at both the Bamber Bridge game and away at Radcliffe and staff, directors and team managers were abused. Those responsible should be ashamed of themselves, you know who you are!

We are now in the process of issuing banning orders against them and they will not be allowed entrance to the ground with immediate effect.

We are attempting to build a community club encouraging children to the rangers through one of the many junior football teams or encouraging them to visit through extremely favourable access. The actions of a minority will simply not be allowed to overpower the majority who mirror our visions and aspirations and want Stafford Rangers to reflect not just a football club that performs on the pitch, but a club built on respect. Without that we have nothing.

We have met with the team managers this week to establish a new process for getting information out to you by way of a regular newsletter, which will be posted on the website and social media and hope to get the first one out to you in the next couple of weeks.

We will also be looking at our whole media set up and looking at the various non-official channels, which operate using our badge and SRFC will tell you who is representing the club officially from that point on. Some individuals also seem to believe that they can also operate in a position within the club, an official channel, and then disrespect that position by using their personal voice on social media criticising the club, that will change, you can’t have it both ways.

We were appalled to see that some openly criticised stewards who do a thankless task for a pittance of a return. We thank them all for their continued support and we will also be looking at introducing further stewarding to ensure that everyone complies with our vision of a respectful ground, where our young supporters and their parents are protected from the side of football no one likes. This all comes at a financial cost within an organisation where the expenses are always greater than the income. Additional expense that we can’t afford.

This is not the type of post the club wants to make. We accept that a few mistakes have been made, but the actions of a few will not be allowed to diminish a club that so many support and so few work hard at making it a better place and a credit to the town it represents.

Thank-you.

Stafford Rangers Football Club