Rick Skelton wasn't at this meeting so we don't have the benefit of his write-up, though the club have agreed to have a section on the OWS documenting the minutes from meetings so it might be on there soon. So for now, just a few points to be relayed back to you guys: In attendance there was Nick Thompson and Ash Lord of Hull City, Peter Johnson formerly of OSC, Louis Cooper (the 15 year old who initiated legal proceedings against WYP) and his dad Chris, Connor Flinton representing the 'Ulltras, a guy from Tiger Chat whose name I don't remember, Paul Atkin I think who is from the Southern Supporters' Club, Judith Judge and Chris Ashton of the OSC, Les Motherby of AN and Ian Waterson of CI. There was also another two people - a lady and a man - both had significant inputs but I can't remember their names or if they represented any particular group. Sorry! AL wants to implement a 'rotating membership' meaning that different people will be at the meeting each time. I'm unsure about this idea personally. I'm hoping that at least one of me and OLM will be at each meeting so we can have some kind of not606 presence. Season pass sales - we've sold just under 14,500 so far. We only sold 11,000 for all of last season. NT believes this is partly due to the promotion push but also because their marketing presence has been much greater this year. A question was asked as to how many we can actually sell. NT was unsure what the required number of matchday tickets was but estimated it might be a limit of around 19,000. Summer projects - At this point I should admit I forgot my notepad so there are some bits I can't remember from the meeting. One of the projects was that the matchday programme is going to be revamped. Away matches - The club want to meet with all concerned police forces immediately after the fixtures are released so we can come to a sensible agreement RE policing for games. Huddersfield was discussed and we agreed that the march was a big success in the long-term because every police fore now know that if they **** about with football fans unnecessarily, anyone can start a political march and really hit them in the pocket. Away ticket priority for next season was discussed. Very few people at the club were here last time around so the Duffen situation was explained to AL and NT. NT agreed that there would be a loyalty system drawn up and in place for next season. The 'teamcard' passes were discussed, particularly that loyalty is no correctly recorded. I.e. if I buy four tickets for me and my family only I get the reward points, not them. Also reward points apparently don't stockpile and run out at the end of May. I suggested this is stupid and needs changing - if people want to save up points for a shirt they should be able to. Working groups - The club are still working on 'themed' stands. This is better than it sounds. It just involves zero tolerance on swearing in the South stand, but common sense/leeway applied in the East stand. NT wants to establish 'service-level agreements' so everyone knows what to expect from the stewarding in their area of the ground. A junior supporters' club is planned. NT is very keen on this idea. Apparently we're the only club of our size who doesn't have one. We agreed that we definitely don't do enough to promote kids becoming City fans. Louis Cooper was suggested to lead this group. Rebranding of the club - Les Motherby asked for clarification that we aren't changing our identity a la Cardiff. The sign above the Hull City reception now says 'Hull City Tigers'. NT if I'm being honest didn't convince me with his answer. He says the 'business' and the 'club' are separate entities and the club will not be changing its name, it's just for marketing and business purposes. Various people suggested that this shouldn't involve changing signs at the ground and on the website but NT defended this. He dismissed the possibility of us becoming 'Hull Tigers' but seems keen on 'Hull City' 'Tigers' as our 'brand' name. NT feels that we don't make enough of our identity as a team that players in stripes. I disagreed as I do when it's discussed on this board - citing that we've played so many years in plain shirts it should also be considered our identity - but was in the minority. Les Motherby in particular was adamantly in agreement with NT that we should play in stripes more. Policing. NT mentioned that the minimum amount of segregation was 900 seats. Just thought I'd throw that in there as I found it interesting. We have a new catering partner at the ground. The club staff were working until 10pm the evening before the Forest game to ensure we actually had a catering partner after the previous one went bust. FLAG Archive Edit: Just adding the link to the archive to the OP.
900 seats for segregation ? How did we manage those big attendances last time in the PL ? Think we got 25000 on at least one occasion and the capacity is 25404 or something close
I've absolutely no intention of attending any further FLAG meetings, I don't do part time work and having different people at every meeting makes the whole thing a waste of time.
Black and amber stripes- unique colours in English football (how many other clubs can claim that?) Black and amber stripes gave birth to the Tigers - one of the Top 5 nicknames in English football Why reinvent the wheel?
First point for the next meeting then, where practical the fans should get to choose who represents them on the panel so the club should just allocate the places to those groups. It might not be practical if they decide to have a rep for the South Stand, but for groups like CI, AN, and us it's not exactly difficult to have a quick poll and select someone. If we want to send someone different the next time then we can decide it for ourselves. Next point, re the policing, we've heard before about how the SAG has had to just blindly do as they're told by the police. If for example the police wanted to move one of our games from 3pm Saturday to a noon kickoff, and the rest of the SAG disagreed and said that it was going to happen at 3pm what could the police actually do about it? Given what's going on with our games and games like the Palace/Brighton playoffs we should use our PL status to draw the publicity onto the issue by entering into a standoff with them. The only outcomes possible should be that we win and we play the game on our terms, or the police are shown to the wider world to be abusing their powers, and the club/SAG minus the police statements to the press should be worded as strongly as possible. (I know Blunderside haven't been responsible for the games in question, but as it seems to be spreading and escalating and we can only do it with Blunderside they'll have to be the ones we have it with)
God knows. Tickler reckons it was over 25000 for Liverpool. This is one thing I meant to ask but the meeting ended quite abruptly because Humberside wanted to talk to Nick Thompson. Shame you feel that way. I agree with you that the original group was fine. Personally I think they're just trying to involve more people and don't have room for us all. The issue seems to be that the SAG consists of the council, all the emergency services and other health and safety brigade members. The club have only just managed to get a seat on the SAG (Nick Thompson) and even then he's only one man on the panel.
I want them to pick a group that represents the majority of fans and stick wth it. The first meeting had representatives from all the main City message boards, along with representatives from the OSC, the senior tigers and community radio. If they wanted to add a couple more, then that would be fine, but changing things completely for each meeting seems pointless, they'll end up discussing the same things at every meeting, rather than actually moving anything forward.
Gloucester City are also the Tigers. I believe Newport County also share our colours and have just been promoted to the Football League. Devils Advocate and all that
[video=youtube;yb1Wnuw4iUA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yb1Wnuw4iUA[/video] Dear Ash Lord and Nick Thompson, Would it be good if we could have produced a video along these lines from last Saturday's game? Too late now, and we are not the richest club in the world.... Maybe next season, when we are richer and have massive global exposure, the club could consider the merits of having a high quality YouTube channel like Man City do.
Any chance of getting rid of L**ds Utd colours off the KC frontage and replacing with black and amber?
I know it's the council's colours, but I've always found it bizarre that there are 2 rows of 'yellow' tiles - surely they could make the blue tiles black and one row of the yellow tiles amber and one row of tiles white - that way it represents both clubs that play at the KC (so nobody can argue favouritism etc) and it would also match the interior of the stadium. It's daft that they made the interior to match both clubs, yet didn't for the exterior.
It looks much better, but the FC will still claim it's too City-ish and the council won't pay for it anyway.
I thought they probably would too, even though it's an equal share of colour - It'd be funny if someone stuck it on Twitter just to make up a rumour saying Assem Allam has changed the KC Stadium exterior just to see how long it takes Terry Geraghty and his ilk to go into meltdown and straight into battle mode on the matter without thinking (as usual). I wonder why they insisted on the council colours on the outside, but not the inside? Seems strange - if you're happy for the clubs that share the ground to have their colours inside, why not out? It's not like most people know it's owned by the council because of those colours, they've got a massive sign above the main entrance.
