There’s No Confusion – Fans Will Decide

VARIOUS newspapers still seem to be in a wee bit of a muddle about the (longstanding and consistent) position of the Sonstrust on the planning application by Dumbarton FC’s owners to build a new stadium for the club at Young’s Farm.

First, the Evening Times and the Herald grandly announced last week that ‘Dumbarton fans back bid to move historic ground’. They said this on the strength of an (unchecked) quote about potential local benefit, mined from the ‘Thumbs Up for Young’s Farm’ press release.

(In a letter back, we pointed out that we have indeed “recognised the community and  commercial potential” that could come from a sustainable stadium development. But the trust hasn’t yet made any decision about formal endorsement of a particular plan — because to take such a decision we’d need to put it to a members’ vote, which hasn’t happened yet. That’s all.)

The Dumbarton Reporter was appraised of this important distinction, and this week has published a story about it along with a full page about the Young’s Farm campaign. But its chosen front page headline for this was  ‘Fans deny backing stadium move plan’, which to many innocent readers might seem to imply that we’ve decided not to back it.

No, that’s clearly not the case either! There was nothing to ‘deny’. All we did was point out that the Evening Times claim about “full support” was not accurate because no official vote has been taken, that we are maintaining our positive and ‘Open mind on a ground move’ right now, and that the Sonstrust is very constructively engaging with the club’s owners on all the issues involved in either moving or staying — because, like everybody else involved, we want the right decision to be taken for the benefit of DFC.

IT’S AS SIMPLE AS THAT… or, if you want a bit more detail, this!

PS. We have a further meeting with an owner’s representative planned at the end of this week, and we are hopeful about reporting further progress in the near future. There’s also a Q&A session before the game on 6th January.