I have stepped down following Saturday's events. I have no problem with sharing my email to the Club to provide clarity for those interested:
Morning all,
With immediate effect, I will no longer be volunteering my time and intellectual property towards maintaining the Altrincham Football Club's social media accounts. I hope you can understand that I make this decision with a heavy heart, yet after this weekend's events I no longer feel comfortable with the position.
When I was approached to run the Football Club's Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts I was honoured that a fellow fan had reached out and put my name forward for such a vital role within the Club's online presence. I'd like to think that over the past six months we have grown the social media channels in to some of the most respected in non-league football, and we have had many success stories along the way; being able to bring the FA Cup to the J. Davidson Stadium was a proud moment, not to mention the £2,000 won for the Club through Marathonbet's Social Media Challenge.
From my understanding, the password for the Twitter account was changed mid-game on Saturday, March 18th to freeze access for a fellow volunteer who was active in the demonstration against the Chairman. At no point was I notified of this and I was an afterthought throughout this process. Although I was at work, had I been handed the new password I could have maintained the Twitter feed to save online-face for the Club. Instead, it is now 9:00 on Monday, March 20th and there still hasn't been a tweet since the 56th minute of the game. I have to wonder why I was not handed the new password on the spot? I have to believe that it was because those who made the decision did not want me to have it, either.
I support the demonstration and the fans that chose to take part. I did make that fairly obvious on the altyfans.co.uk forum with various posts in its favour. Action could have been taken prior to the game, if that's how the relevant people felt. Changing a password to an account mid-game is petty and poisonous.
Never have we let personal opinion get in the way of professional coverage for the Club. I would like to think that I maintained impartiality with the content I produced and the communication I had with Club Officials. I never used the social media channels to funnel any sort of agenda-filled connotations.
I'm of the opinion that if you're going to make your bed, you lie in it. I was given the new password late on Saturday night but quickly found that I had lost all desire to post. The decision to change the password should not have been made unless there were plans to hand over coverage to someone else. I find Saturday's events to be a bit of a slap in the face of the hard work we have put in, and the time we have dedicated on top of our own paid positions elsewhere.
Clearly, its all getting a bit too political for me now. This is not what I volunteered my time in aid of Altrincham for.
I would like to say thank you to Brian Flynn, John Laidlar, John Edwards, Mike Ripley, Bill Waterson, Jack Jolly and anyone else that I have communicated with over the past six months or so. You have all offered me advice and guidance where I have needed it. I hope my stepping down does not lumber anyone with unwanted work, but as I said, those who made the decision to freeze us out of the account can now deal with the mess.
I would be happy to pick this role back up once there is change at the top.
Kind regards,
Andrew Flynn