Fans To Have A Voice

My fellow Killie fans, on Thursday the 3rd of April, we will embark on a journey together into the realm of the Football Trust. Following in the footsteps of many English clubs and also a few Scottish ones, a few of us have decided to start a Trust for the benefit of Kilmarnock Football Club and the community. The initial meeting will be held at Rugby Park, in the Caprington Suite at the Park Hotel at 7.30pm and everyone of you are more than welcome to attend.

This meeting will allow us to introduce the principal of a supporter's trust to you all and also allow us to pick a working committee to run the Trust until properly constituted. It is a non profit making democratically run organisation which will

benefit the Club and community financially. Funds

raised will help finance the club with you actually having a say in the best place to direct the money.

It doesn't matter who you are. Whether you are a season ticket holder, privileged seat holder, supporter's club member, a walk up customer, or someone who doesn't even go to the games, it makes no difference. Mothers, fathers, grandparents, aunts & uncles, cousins, sons & daughters and the next door neighbour's cat - If you care about Killie, then come along and give us your support on the night. (and beyond). Contact me on colin@killiefc.com for further details.

Colin Hargreaves Kilmarnock Supporters Association Chairman.

One Door Closes...

Firstly I don't mind admitting I'm a shade jealous of Inverness Caley Thistle fans. Their club has only been in existence since 1994 and already it has done something that Killie hasn't managed in my lifetime - beat Celtic at Parkhead. Last Sunday they knocked them out the Scottish Cup for a second time thus ending any chance of an old firm cup final. Now as we all know Killie are pushing hard for Europe this season and hopefully if we continue our recent good form there's a fair chance we can finish third and guarantee another continental jaunt.

However the question that has been getting discussed at great length in recent weeks is, will 4th place get us into the UEFA Cup? Some Killie fans were secretly hoping that it would be an old firm final as that would guarantee fourth place as a qualifying position. That cannot happen now and if someone other than Rangers wins the trophy then they will automatically go into the UEFA Cup. The source of discussion of late has been what happens now if Rangers win the trophy, as they will already be in Europe via their league position. B&H have done some detective work and the bottom line is that despite some changes to the rules in recent seasons, the runner's up will qualify for the UEFA Cup, so look out Jambos, here we come! (apparently since this went to press we have found out from the SFA that if the huns win the cup and Celtic win the league fourth place will get into Europe)

Bowled Over

There was good news for disabled Killie fanatic Davy Boyd (alias the big mad drummer) this week. He has been selected to represent his country at the indoor bowls home internationals in Cumbernauld Indoor Bowling Club on the 3rd and 4th of May this year. He also has a chance to go to the World Championships in New Zealand in October. Davy tells us that he always wears a Killie t-shirt under his national top for good luck and we're sure that all your best wishes will go with him to.

Season Ticket Launch

Saturday morning saw the first of the big two-day launch of the new season tickets and the events of the day took place in the Park Suite and the Killie Club. The morning started quite slowly, as you would expect at 9.00am on a free Saturday, but gradually more and more people turned up to buy their new season tickets until quite a queue formed. Fortunately, as you can see, the staff were in abundance and coped admirably and the sales went pretty much as well as expected.

A couple of local bands were literally blasting out their stuff in the Killie Club and they attracted a fair crowd, and on Sunday five more bands took the stage in The Park Hotel's Caprington Suite where the launch moved to on Sunday. To be honest I'm no sure who they all were but I did get a chance to see Middle Men and Underclass, both of whom put on excellent sets. Underclass are releasing a CD next month and on this showing it should do well.

Back at the business end everything went quite smoothly on Saturday apart for a minor faux pas with the club forgetting to put the old Killie videos on, but most people were more interested in the Teletext scores, the horse racing (god bless Hippo and his tips for once) and the live rugby to bother. Sunday also kicked off in a blaze of sunshine, and like the previous day, things started to get busy after lunchtime. The pie and pint offer was going down well...at least the pies did with us seeing we're off the ale for the moment, and everyone else seemed to be enjoying a few refreshments.

Hoody, Bazza, Hooky, Boydie, Melly, Cuthbert, Dibble and Grubb (okay, scratch the last three there!) and any other players with ridiculous nick names all made impromptu appearances throughout the day after their extra training stint had finished. That'll teach them to get beat by Livi in a closed-door game! They signed autographs and generally mingled with the fans, Freddy in particular being a big hit with the ladies.

The 'Share Centre' operated by Hippo and myself did okay considering the turnover. We matched quite a few up on both days and only have just over 100 existing season ticket holders in the 'bank' looking to pair up with a new ticket holder. They are all still looking themselves of course and they realise that we can't guarantee anything, but there was NO ONE moaning about anything regardless. Every one was very positive about the two for one initiative.

There was still quite a bit of confusion surrounding the deal and we did our best to keep people right. Basically you buy your season ticket as normal and you get a blue form in return that you can sell on to a non season ticket holder to try and re-coup half of your money. It is as simple as that. They give you cash, you give them the blue form, and they go to the club and get a season ticket with it. They do need some photographic evidence (passport or the like) of who they are with them but the photo that goes on their non-transferable ticket is done by the club.

All new season ticket holders were matched up straight away and we would like to encourage any of you who are going to buy for the first time to contact us so that we can start knocking names off the database. We hope that everyone will continue to try and find their own 'partner' but we will keep the database running for as long as it takes and will have it with us on our upcoming road shows, details of which will be published soon. Meanwhile you can still buy your season tickets at the Administration Centre, which is the wee bungalow at the Dundonald Road entrance.

Read the B&H column in the Kilmarnock Standard every week