Monday 22 August 2011

The inability to differentiate between things

One of the most ironic and self-defeating things that Franchise customers do, is their constant moaning about being blamed for things they haven't done, when in fact they haven't been blamed for anything except giving Winkelman money to keep Franchise FC going. This is simply a statement of fact - when they give money to Franchise FC they are giving money to the man that lured Wimbledon FC away from its fans to Milton Keynes. Wimbledon fans rightly hate Winkelman for that and therefore disapprove of anyone that rewards him for his actions. It's not hard to grasp, now is it? And yet when faced with this very simple notion, some Franchise customers simply ram their fingers in their ears, screw their eyes tight shut and refuse to acknowledge it. They trot out "I'm just going to watch my local football club" as if it is some form of magical armour that will deflect everything - it doesn't and never has.

Personally I've no interest in engaging with individual Franchise customers about their reasons for attending Franchise games, but, as this blog demonstrates, I do care about the lies and misinformation that they have been fed from day one and are still reproducing, as well as adding new twisted forms of nonsense all the time. Everyone makes their own mind up about what actions they should or should not take, but I will be damned if Franchise customers will ever be allowed to whitewash either the perpetrators of the move or the facts, just because they want to feel better about a choice they made that many thousands of people disapprove of.

And let's not forget, they did have a choice and they had every opportunity to know full well what it was they were choosing to support. There was massive amounts of media coverage, the protests were long and loud, the fans opposition was always crystal clear and the local campaigns in MK made it clear the move was about a stadium and a supermarket, not saving a football club, so there was no excuse for being under any misapprehensions:

http://www.miltonkeynes.co.uk/news/local/no_supermarket_no_stadium_warns_leaflet_1_871345

The true irony here is that Franchise customers moan about being blamed by everyone, when no such thing is the case. Wimbledon fans despise Franchise customers for supporting Winkelman's franchised football club, but I've yet to meet a fan that actually thinks they are to blame for the move. Yet this is the lie that some of the customers have convinced themselves of. The very generalisation that they say they hate, is the one they have applied to themselves!

For example, read all the posts in this blog and you won't find a single example of me blaming Franchise customers for the move, except, as in this post, the responsibility they bear for helping finance the project once it was in MK. Yet if you read the reactions to it on Franchise forums, you'd be convinced I'd blamed each of them personally for killing Wimbledon FC. Not to put too fine a point on it, they have become their own worst enemy, exhibiting a martyr mentality and a complete inability to deal with the actual facts or rational argument.

Of course, this is just a few internet posters that have painted themselves into a corner and have no way to escape their own faulty logic, but, as we've seen before with the 'legal continuation' lie, sometimes these things can be quite pervasive. Next time you're talking to neutrals about Franchise, bear in mind that they might have been exposed to these Franchise would-be martyrs, who've managed to completely lose track of why it is we don't like them. Winkelman's still the villain, Franchise FC is still the ill-gotten gain being paraded in front of us... and all the Franchise customers are is a continuing conduit for lies and misinformation.

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