I could be wrong here, but the 12th Man scheme is separate from the club.
It has no contractual obligation to the club, and conversely, it is not down to the club to advertise anyone to "take over" the 12th Man scheme. I believe it's main function was that Gav could approach the 12th Man scheme for funding for a targeted player(s).
Considering we are financially healthy with a decent playing budget (compared to many others in the NLS), the 12th Man being on a hiatus is not really a major issue.
Happy to be told I'm talking out of my backside!
Hi all, Neil here - haven’t posted on Urban for a long time but was alerted to some chat on here about the 12th Man so thought I’d come on and reply.
Firstly, Burty is spot on - the 12th Man was set up as a fan led initiative to help DHFC through some hard times, and has never been run by the club. It was always entirely volunteer led, and has raised in excess of £80,000 for the club over eight years, always to fund specific additional players in times of need. I’ll always think back fondly of signings like Chico Ramos when big Phil got injured in the season‘s run-in, and of course Danny Carr when we had the chance of signing a young striker previously on the books at Reading, but the club couldn’t stretch the budget to meet his wages.
Eight years on from starting the initiative, it’s fair to say the club is in a very different place now and as a result I’m not sure the 12th Man has a place at this current time.
The 12th Man bucket, our most visible fund raiser, used to raise £200-300 on matchdays back in the days of the Ryman League from crowds of less than 1000. These were all pure donations, added to the bucket mostly in small change from fans that had been coming from years and saw the need for extra playing budget. As the crowds grew, donations fell, and in the season pre-COVID we were struggling to raise £100 a game. A few reasons for this in my opinion - firstly, the crowds swelled but not with the sort of people who would hand over money for nothing to help the club. As numbers grew to 2000+ the stand would simply get lost in a swarm of people, and when we occasionally explained to someone what we were doing the standard response would be “why does a non league club getting gates like this expect me to hand over a cash donation?”
We tried to move the focus from the bucket to selling items, like the excellent Unison card wallets, and various books donated by fans. However to be brutally honest there’s only so much you can make from 2nd hand Kevin Keegan biographies and it did give the stand something of a charity shop feel!
The other thing that has changed with the two promotions since we started the scheme is of course the professionalism (or semi-professionalism
) of the club. In the Ryman South, a couple of hundred quid and went a long way to helping the playing budget. Without wanting to disclose any numbers, in the National South, um, not so much.
The 12th Man bank account is still there and I will continue to monitor the finances, and I would like to say a big thank you at this point to everyone that still contributes by standing order. I guarantee that every penny raised will continue to be used as it was intended - to help with the playing budget in times of real need. But from the contributors I have spoken to, we generally agree, that time is not now - especially as an offer of help I made to the chairman at the start of the season did not even garner a reply.
Happy to chat if anyone is serious about wanting the scheme to continue this season, but it does seem like some of the comments above have been made without any real understanding of what the 12th Man is or any of the issues we’ve faced in recent seasons.
Apologies for the long post, but hope that has provided some helpful context!
How about adding a 'dislike' button so if someone is being an arse you can give them a thumbs down 
