The Railwaymen Supporters Society (RSS) Board met on Wednesday 24th March to discuss the Sheldon Report and the situation at Crewe Alex Football Club. As a result, we can share the following information at this time:
- We have fully accepted the Sheldon Report and its findings. Our upmost sympathies are with all the Survivors for the pain that they have suffered and continue to suffer.
- We have received numerous items of correspondence from both members and non-members of the RSS regarding this subject.
- We believe that John Bowler should resign from all positions held at the club with immediate effect. This matches the opinion of the majority of fans from their correspondence to the RSS and from across social media.
- The RSS have already contacted John Bowler directly and made these feelings clear to him.
- The RSS Board will now offer to meet with the Survivors of the Abuse to understand what steps we can take going forwards. We have already had contact with one of the Survivors and will look to meet with them shortly.
We will continue to liaise with our members, the fans, the football club and the Survivors on this subject.
Please contact info@railwaymen.co.uk if you have any further questions.
Well done indeed! That is exactly the right response and it is so heartening to see the RSS board fully understand the gravity of the situation and the depth of feeling on the issue by a rapidly growing number of supporters. One look at #Crewe Alex on Twitter demonstrates this. The club needs to take a totally different attitude towards the Bennell scandal and this can only be done by changing its culture – which means some people have to go, starting with John Bowler, despite his otherwise magnificent service to the club. Too many people in positions of authority at the club have been there too long. The club’s reputation needs salvaging, and only the board of directors can do this.
Perfect response, well done, great result and the best for the club moving forward, the nepotistic structure also needs to be examined so the club so it can truly be a community club, at the moment it only an illusory title.
Well done !
It is a shame that it came to this and John Bowler didn’t do this earlier, but we have got there in the end !
We can appreciate how difficult it must be for a supporters’ organisation to publish such a statement requesting the resignation of the chairman.
Like many others we have been following this for the last four years and many of us sat at open struggling to watch this week’s harrowing three part BBC programme.
Well done to you for taking this stand and we hope you can help return the credibility to your club that has been lost since Andy Woodward first exposed what had happened.