Northern Ireland v Germany

SUPPORTING NORTHERN IRELAND CAN BE HARD WORK!

In the various pieces I’ve written in the match programme over the past year I’ve tried to give a bit of background into some of the core work the Amalgamation of Official Northern Ireland Supporters’ Clubs carries out.

The AONISC has certainly grown since its formation just over 20 years ago, both in terms of the number of members within the organisation along with the time commitment needed to try and pull everything together and make it work. You may have seen a line we often use on our social media: “all of our work is entirely voluntary”. Each of us are indeed volunteers with regular jobs and have to fit in our AONISC work around our paid employment and other commitments. One example of the sort of demands that can arise unexpectedly was the infamous day on which many of us discovered that our applications for Euro 2016 tickets had been unsuccessful. On that day I put in nine hours on that issue on top of the day job. On other occasions something will suddenly draw media attention and you can find yourself fitting in maybe half a dozen interviews for television, radio and various newspapers in a very short space of time. When this happens you simply have to ‘clear the decks’ and deal with the issue at hand. I can remember doing something ridiculous like 30 interviews in one week at a pivotal juncture during the ‘stadium debate’ some years ago. Various meetings and events also take up lots of our time. As well as our own meetings with our club representatives and committee meetings we’ll

also attend events and meetings at the invitation of our member clubs, IFA Council meetings, meetings with the PSNI, sitting down with various IFA personnel, including the Chief Executive, and even meeting with the residents from the community around the stadium. In 2017 we were represented at 53 meetings and events during the year. Our Management Committee are basically a very dedicated group who believe in putting in the time and effort to try to give fans some representation and to help fellow supporters. We don’t claim to speak for everyone, but we’ll certainly try to help anyone who asks, wherever we can. Together fans are always stronger! Gary McAllister Amalgamation of Official Northern Ireland Supporters’ Clubs

FOLLOW US AT @WGMac TheAmalgamation www.aonisc.co.uk

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