A Message from Gwyn & Corky (Story by Valley RAMS) We attended a meeting today at the club to discuss our grievances regarding the amount of restrictive travel arrangements placed upon our fans this season...we also discussed why the RAMS felt they needed to stop organising travel to away matches. To the members who attended our last meeting, they will be well aware of the reasons behind this decision why we could no longer risk the possibility of our reps, and our coach drivers, who have become personnel friends, from the possibility of arrest, due to the archaic and stupid laws that apply to carrying alcohol on coaches, or for that matter any vehicle of 8 or more seats. It would appear that majority of people who actually apply these laws, agree that they are outdated; and give a negative incentive for fans to travel on masse in a controlled and organised manner. It seems ridiculous that the only places you can’t drink on the way to and from football matches is on the organised transport, however, if you travel in people carriers, trains or cars, under no control, supervision, or organised responsible plan, you are allowed to drink when and where you want to, without fear of breaking the law, or more importantly being subjected to heavy handed coach searches, delays and sniffer dogs. One of the major successes in defeating hooliganism at our club was getting so many people to travel on organised coaches and reduce the risk of sporadic and spread out flare ups and possible confrontation that had previously occurred for so many years before our conception. Through negotiation and communication, we offered people coach travel with the incentive of being found and allocated pubs at away games, and also having a blind eye turned to the massive incentive of allowing people to keep some cans underneath the bus, so on the return journey back home, they could spend their Saturday night having a drink and a sing song on the coach, rather than stop off on route for a drink or to look for premises where they could buy drink for the return journey. We are all to aware of the problems the club had when fans returning from away games would regularly loot and rob service stations off licences and pubs on the return journey. However whilst making huge improvements along the fight against hooliganism, it would appear the new and possibly more serious threat seen by some is the drinking culture that exists amongst our fans. Some people seem to think that this drinking culture only started a when the RAMS formed, but to anyone who has been watching Cardiff play away for more than 6 years, they will know that the drinking culture has always been there, and if anything was worse and less manageable in the bad old days. So where do we go from here, at the meeting tonight it was made clear that the club and police could not support or turn a blind eye to the law breaking that involves supporters consuming alcohol on organised travel. We can fully understand their position and whilst hoping that some of the measures and suggestions that came out of this meeting, will help continue and maintain the massive improvements that the RAMS have helped to bring about. The club are setting up a travel group with responsibilities to arrange meetings with clubs that we are due to play. The travel club will be made up of 2 form the Police two from the club and 3 from the supporters, Vince will fulfil this roll on behalf of the supporters club, Kevin Millward has volunteered to represent fans who wish to travel independently, and we are looking at voting for a person to represent the RAMS supporters club, which we fully intend to keep running as a Supporters club, but no involvement in the organised travel. We will still support and do our charity events, keep the web site and VRTV going, organise social events and maintain the Away travel with Wales section. We intend continuing our regular meetings and fully supporting our club in any way that we can. We will be holding a meeting shortly to ask for a volunteer to sit on this travel club committee, the aim of this travel club is to hopefully facilitate the maximum amount of our fans being allowed to travel to away games with the minimum of restrictions. We fully support the aims and purpose of this travel club and genuinely hope that it works for all our benefit. However Corky and myself are taking a step back, we feel that along with all our fellow RAMS we have played a part in getting us this far, and helped to get the new stadium started, 6 years ago our image and if we are honest our behaviour was preventing us from making any progress, no sponsors would come near Cardiff City and the Council would never have given the club millions of pounds worth of public land. Corky especially has taken so much flak on various web sites for doing his best to represent us fans and lots of us have set ourselves up for blame and abuse, at times we were in a no win situation, not only with the club and the police at times, but also our own fans, our only aim was to try and turn things around, which whilst everyone will not agree on our methods, the results and achievements speak for themselves. One of our biggest achievements was to convince some lunatics, to become Valley Ram Reps. The most thankless un rewarded job you could think of, without these people the RAMS would have failed in the first month. We can no longer ask these people to take all these risks and get little if no thanks. We would like to finish by appealing to everyone to keep supporting the club, keep safe, keep legal and keep working to maintain our improving image, the last thing we wish to see, is a return to the bad old days, if that happens then 6 years of hard work by so many, will simply have been a waste. Onward and upward, the stadium is in place, we have a great academy, a great manager, a new board, a great team who could possibly take us into the Premiership, there is lot’s to be positive about, so let us all stick together and smell the roses. Thanks for all the support and all the fun, Gwyn and Corky