Trust News

A cheque for £1,680 was presented to the Ty Hafan hospice in Sully today – the latest proceeds from the sales of the Trust’s blue shirts.

The presentation to Ty Hafan was made by shirt designer, Karl Payne, who is pictured handing the cheque over to Eleanor Ryan of Ty Hafan. Pictured left is Jamie Warwick of shirt makers, Kukri and Trust member Phil Jones (right), who came up with the idea and worked tirelessly to get it off the ground. Phil Nifield represented the Trust board.

Eleanor hosted a tour of the fantastic Ty Hafan hospice facilities for children with life limiting illnesses and their families. She explained the annual cost of running the hospice was £3.7m a year – and rising – with 95% of the money having to be fund raised.

Among recent facilities provided is a playground which allows even those in wheel-chairs to enjoy the equipment. It has cost £250,000.

The £1,680 cheque brought the total raised through the shirt initiative to a fantastic £10,765. Thanks to everyone for buying the shirt and helping raise valuable funds for such a truly worthwhile cause.

We are pleased to inform everyone that it is planned shortly to sell the Trust shirts from a number of Ty Hafan shops in Cardiff and across south-east Wales. More details to follow.

A dozen members of the Trust and Supporters Club travelled to Chasetown FC to watch their game against Norton United in the Evo-Stik League Division One South.

We have maintained our relationship with the Staffordshire side since our 3rd round FA Cup game with them back in 2008, the year we reached the final.

The fans received another fantastic welcome and thoroughly enjoyed the trip and the chance to renew our friendship with the Scholars. Chasetown is a true community club and we are so glad to have been able to maintain our friendship through football with them with these visits.

It was also good to be able to meet Stephen Sutton’s dad Andy, who is a Chasetown supporter and the remarkable father of a remarkable young man. We are hoping to play a supporters’ match on the Scholars ground at the end of the season to raise funds for the Teenage Cancer Trust.

Many thanks you Scholars!

Tim Hartley, Chair, Cardiff City Supporters’ Trust

Trust board member Brian Mertens gets into the Christmas spirit early and wears one of our Santa hats

With just over five weeks to go, the Trust is launching a Christmas initiative to help the work of Ty Hafan – and continue our blue theme in the stadium.

We will be selling blue Santa hats from the Trust office before the Reading game – and at other home games before Christmas.

The hats cost just £2 and £1 from every sale goes to the work of the children’s hospice at Sully.

And just a reminder that we have copies left of Mario Risoli’s excellent book on Cardiff City’s European adventures, From Tashkent with Love. It’s available for £15 for Trust members – a discount of £1.95. It would make a great Christmas present for any Cardiff City fan.

We’ve also still got a few copies left of the acclaimed Journey Back book by Paul Evans and Richard Holt. It is available for £17.50, £2 less than the recommended price.

The Trust office has also old programmes for sale, Fred Keenor statue T-shirts for just £1, statue badges and the special commemorative programme produced for the statue unveiling.

Trust chair Tim Hartley reports on the key points of discussion from a meeting of the England and Wales council of Supporters Direct (SD).

• SD and the FSF (Football Supporters Federation) have been working a new Memorandum of Understanding to spell out which areas each organisation is responsible for. It was felt however, that there should be joint lobbying on certain issues e.g. football licencing.
• SD gets the bulk of its money from the Premier League’s Fans Fund and reports back twice a year on progress against its targets. Here are some of the headlines for the last 12 months: 126 football trusts in England and Wales with 348,686 members. More than 100 trusts have had an hour or more of support from SD. Two new trusts and three new clubs have been formed. 8 training sessions for trust members have been held as well as 7 regional meetings.
• SD has carried out casework at Lincoln, Neath RU, Cheltenham, Reading and Forest Green Rovers.
• Two highlights of the Community Share schemes SD is working on are: Lewes FC raising £200,000 for a new 43G pitch and Wycombe Wanderers aiming to raise £500,000 to refinance the club.
• The Expert Working Group was launched at Portsmouth on  October 21. SD is keen to ensure that the terms of reference remain focussed on removing barriers to ownership and structured fans engagement. The Group is chaired by Joanna Manning Cooper. Other members are the Premier League, Football League, Football Association and Supporters Direct and representatives from the Portsmouth, Wrexham, Wimbledon and Swansea Trusts. The group will tackle different issues such as tax and insolvency at each meeting and should report by March 2015.
• The Welsh Government has offered to fund a feasibility study for the creation of SD Cymru. Robin Osterley and Tim Hartley are outing the proposal together. Tim is also arranging a visit to Merthyr Town for the new Sport Minister, Ken Skates.
• SD has helped list 29 grounds as assets of community value. There are 15 more applications in the pipeline. Tim is making the case for the WG to reverse its decision not to offer the right to list grounds in Wales.
• SD will produce its own manifesto in advance for next year’s General Election and urge the main parties to adopt its proposals.
• It was noted that there is little information on clubs websites about SLOs. SD is working with the FSF on a training module for all SLOs.
• We are keen to get guidance from the Local Government Association to ensure a fan sits on every council’s Safety Advisory Group.
• The ‘Watching football is not a crime’ seminar was well attended. Blanket measures are still being used against fans rather than the police targeting individuals.

Trust member David Collins will be signing copies of The Secret Premier League Diary of a Cardiff City fan, which he penned with Gareth Bennett.

The book, which costs £9.99, is a day-by-day diary of the Bluebirds’ first and only season in the Premier League.

The signing takes place at the Wellfield Book Shop in Wellfield Road, Roath, Cardiff, on Saturday, November 22, at 2pm.