Bournemouth And Boscombe Supporters Union, a new supporters group has been launched today - CourtOffside reacts to the news.

In the past few years there have been various discussions among a number of members of the former AFCBISA committee about bringing the organisation out of mothballs. 

The difficulty that this idea has always faced is in establishing a raison d'etre for the organisation. We already have a Supporters Trust which is a representative body for supporters. They are an established group and are recognised by the football club. Why would people want to join a second group? What function does it serve? Why should the football club listen to any other supporters' group's views?

With hindsight of course, we should never have put AFCBISA into mothballs without a real strategy for bringing it out again. There wasn't much choice though, the committee was becoming spread too thinly with members being involved in more and more at the football club - with the Mutual, Youth Fund representation and various supporter working groups that were set up. We always wanted new fresh blood to come in and succeed us - it never came.

I am utterly convinced of the need for a supporters' organisation aside from the Trust. I have a very particular vision for what the Supporters Trust should be and what its activities should comprise of - but it is also clear to me that that is not shared by the Trust's committee.

When it was born as the Community Mutual, the Supporters Trust was envisaged as having a much wider role than it currently serves. It has several aims and objectives in its constitution that would see it work in the community to promote football, run coaching courses, youth football and undertake activities to bring the community into the football club. Aside from Debbie Harris' excellent work on the Junior Cherries (which I would argue should have a much clearer Supporters Trust branding to show people that the ST is providing this function for the club) the Trust does absolutely nothing to further any of these objectives and suffers from tunnel vision that focuses solely on its representative function. The Supporters Trust is failing because of that tunnel vision. Its committee are well intentioned but are simply making the mistake of only focussing on the football club and not of themselves as an organisation. Rob Trent tried valiantly to rectify this but was sadly unable to turn the juggernaut's path alone - and so it rumbles on, ineffective and its credibility shot to pieces.

We do need a purely representative supporters' group - but that should not be the function of the Supporters' Trust. The Trust should command respect not only from the football club and its supporters but the wider community and the council. It should have gravitas. Gravitas that it earns from the things it does and provides the supporters and the community. However we do need a group that can be a pain in the backside to the club, one that holds the Supporters Trust itself to account and is not constrained by the need to maintain diplomatic and/or working relationships. 

From the discussions about the reformation of AFCBISA came the BFC. Part of the reason for starting the BFC was to create a membership organisation that had a reason for being - albeit a social one - that could then evolve a representative function in its relations with the football club. The membership grew strongly but was not active enough in using the facility to be sustainable. The time for the BFC in a social aspect may well come again. The Inn Off The Bar, whilst an attractive option on matchdays is not a supporters' bar or clubhouse and is really not viable for the kinds of small fundraising social evenings that the BFC would excel at. I digress, however.

A new supporters group has been launched today - the Bournemouth and Boscombe Supporters Union and as posts on the forum from those involved show, they are seeking to acheive full trade union affiliation and are offering free membership for the first year - clearly in order to give them some kind of representative credentials.

The launch of the BBSU is interesting, but is bound to be shrouded in difficulties for the very reasons that meant that AFCBISA was never relaunched. I await news of those involved in its committee with interest. I sincerely hope that they have sought guidance and/or involvement from at least some of us who have been through this process before and know many of the pitfalls that they may face in the immediate, medium and long term - and I hope that they have a real vision for the bigger picture of supporter representation and community involvement in the football club - rather than simply militancy brought about by the last few months of turmoil at Dean Court. The reaction to the launch from many has been predictable and the group will need to weather this and demonstrate exactly what it is they stand for and what role they see themselves as having. They cannot afford to be seen soleley as splitters from the established Trust - but I fear that they need the Trust to change as much as they need to forge their own identity - and they cannot do that in isolation.