Boro president Fawcett unhappy with new club crest

The crest was launched earlier this season, and has seen the “No Battle, No Victory” motto stripped from the design, a move which has incensed Boro fans, including Fawcett, who devised the motto in the 1970s.

It was later incorporated into the seagull badge that Scarborough FC used until it folded in 2007.

Scarborough Athletic also used an adapted version of the badge upon their formation.

Fawcett said: “I have expressed my disappointment to the chairman Dave Holland. I am very unhappy with the change.

“Even putting aside the fact that it was my idea to have the motto, it is along the same lines - although admittedly not quite as bad - as Hull City’s owners trying to change their name or Cardiff City’s owners changing their home strip colour, casting years of tradition to one side.

“The new crest looks naked, unfinished, and although I have been told by the chairman that the old crest will still be used on occasion with the motto on it, the new crest is on the Boro matchday programme so a lot of people will see it.”

Fawcett added: “Also the fact that the fans were not consulted is disappointing as this is after all a fans-run club,”

Chairman Holland said: “We want to apologise to fans for any confusion concerning the club badge, logo and motto, perhaps we were too hasty when we put this new design out. I can re-assure fans that ”No Battle, No Victory” is still our motto and it will still be used with the seagull logo in some situations.

“We have been looking to update and improve the club’s corporate identity as there have been many different logos across club communications and marketing over the past few seasons, and that is why we put out this new logo at the start of the new season when the new club website was launched.”

This afternoon the following statement was released by the club on their website with the board members names, Andy Troughton, Sandra Troughton, Nick Finch, Wendy Danby, Dave Holland, Paul Curson, Geoff Osguthorpe, Steve Smith, underneath.

“The board, following on from further internal consultation on the club’s corporate identity, marketing and branding strategy would like to issue the following statement to its members and its fan base.

“The club have been looking at mechanisms to develop and improve the club’s Corporate Identity, marketing and branding in recent months throughout the whole scope of the clubs operations. We have absorbed the feedback from many of our fan base on the matter which we appreciate has raised many discussion points. Our communication of our developing strategy has not been clear and has caused some understandable confusion. We would like to add some further clarity to our earlier statement in order to try and put some of your fears at ease.

“The clubs historic motto ‘ No Battle No Victory’ will not be dropped or forgotten. We plan to leave this on the clubs merchandising as currently sold. The board have however looked to tailor the motto and badge on other aspects of branding, marketing and Corporate Identity sections within the club. This would be in the form of Letter heads, business cards, website and marketing tools. For example, the motto on the badge on say the letter heads and brochures, is not that clear or readable. The board wanted to make the badge appear more streamline, functionable and for the motto branding to be more prominent on such documents. There has been many differing versions of the badge over the years, we want to aim to achieve a successful design going forward for which the motto ‘ No Battle No Victory’ would either be part of the badge for kit and merchandising, whilst been displayed differently and more prominently on the clubs marketing and media documents where applicable.

“We have decided to restore a more traditional logo until proper consultation can take place. There is still a need to consolidate the various current logos into one identity we can across all merchandise and club material in the future.

“We would like to make it clear we understand the importance of the motto and the history it holds with our fans, trust members and also ourselves on the board. We hope this helps to clarify our aims that we have set out to achieve. The board will continue to absorb feedback on this strategy whilst it undergoes this process.”