The Fans Liaison Committee met for its final gathering of 2006 on Monday 4th December.

Occurring on the day that Adam Pearson dispensed with manager Phil Parkinson, that event understandably overshadowed fans concerns about queues at the beer kiosks and hot water in the womens bogs. The Chairman was quite willing to discuss the termination of the managers contract and the search for a new boss, but it was decided that we'd conduct the meeting as normal and then move on to that topic.

So, to begin proceedings, the club’s latest boardroom recruit was introduced – Andy Dawson, formerly Commercial Manager of Derby County. He has been brought to the club by Adam Pearson to strengthen the club’s commercial activities, and brings with him experience of working at a fellow Championship club in a modern stadium.

Programme

The first supporter issue raised was the club’s programme. Although everyone agreed that it is an excellent product, sales remain low, both in real terms and as a ratio compared with other clubs in the division. Part of this is down to the price, with many feeling that £3 for a matchday programme is too expensive. The chairman noted that this is the standard cost throughout the division, but observed that in the future it may be better to have a smaller programme with fewer pages costing less money, as many of the featured content could easily be transferred over to the monthly City mag. Part of Andy Dawson’s brief is to raise the programme penetration rates, as it is apparently termed, up to a level more consistent with our Championship rivals.

East stand Stewarding

Overzealous stewarding in the north-east corner was discussed, with one committee member passing on a complaint that a fan was instructed to sit under pain of ejection while just to his right several hundred away fans were allowed to stand. Although the club cannot openly tolerate persistent standing without risking the removal of the licence for some areas of the ground, the stewards are discreetly asked to take a common sense approach. The chairman noted that the more experienced stewards are posted to this area, and that they generally will not take swingeing action against standing supporters unless it is considered necessary at the time. Interestingly, the chairman noted that a Stoke supporting acquaintance of his who went in the away end for our recent fixture against them offered praise to the stewarding operation.

Away fans in west Stand

The amount of away fans seated in home areas of the ground at the Sunderland game was discussed. The club took the decision on the day that the situation was manageable in terms of leaving Sunderland fans in situ – despite it being technically an offence to enter home areas as an away fan, the club could not follow its customary procedure of escorting them to the away end as it was full and considered that mass ejections would cause more ill-feeling. Situations such as this are taken on a match-by-match basis however, and if the club believes that visiting fans in the Upper or Lower West stand are causing a problem they reserve the right to act. It was noted that most of the Sunderland fans in home areas were in the West Stand as guests of hospitality box owners. Those with corporate boxes have been notified that they are responsible for the behaviour of their guests.

Mascot package

One supporter asked for some positive feedback for the club’s mascot packages to be noted – the chairman and FLO both observed that praise for these packages is commonplace and the club are very proud of the service they provide for younger supporters wishing to be mascots for the day.

Public address

Predictably, the practice of the PA announcer prompting the crowd to recite a goalscorer’s name was moaned about again. It was decided at the last meeting that it would be given a bit longer, but it hasn't really caught on and even Adam Pearson terms it 'hard work', Chairman speak for 'a bit naff' we assume. Granted, the scarcity of goals and lack of good football is not conducive to raising enthusiasm for it, but it's likely the practice will be dropped. If there is a consensus amongst the committee to do so then it will be gone, but at this meeting there were other things on our mind. As for Steve Jordan, his recent improvements in delivery and tone were praised. One member observed that he sometimes seems to be giving out “too much information” that sounds almost like a barrage, though that's the fault of whoever tells him what to say, not of the announcer himself. Andy Dawson commented that he’s among the better PA announcers he’s come across in the Championship, damnation with faint praise indeed.

Admission prices

The Chairman was asked if anything concrete had been decided upon with regard to the mooted price reductions for next season. At present, the club is “out of step” with the rest of the division in terms of the ticket prices for under-7s, and the club needs to catch up with some of the successful initiatives being run by our rivals. Although nothing has been documented yet, the club is minded to lower both “entry-level season ticket and matchday ticket costs”, with the Upper West stand being the likeliest area for this.

Marketing

The chairman feels the club may have become a little complacent in marketing the club to attract new supporters during the promotion seasons, and that the dropping gates now are a consequence of this. To address the problem, more initiatives will be launched to attract children, with the focus on targeting parents rather than schoolteachers, the former being more likely to give up their time than the latter. City will also look at restoring some of the schemes in place from the Boothferry Park days, when local businesses were given a couple of cut-price tickets in exchange for arranging for a group of people to attend. Although announced attendance figures suggest there are usually 15,000 at the KC Stadium, this figure can be misleading as it is not just a count of those passing through the turnstiles. It is that number added to the number of passholders or corporate ticket holders, so the announced figure will include passholder and corporate no-shows. Recently the actual figure of people in the ground has been nearer to 13,000, so the club are aware of the need to attract more paying customers.

Merchandise

On the subject of merchandise, the Chairman feels that the current range is of good quality and superior to stock sold in recent years. A request for more (and more faithful to the originals) retro shirts was noted.

Concourse TVs

The long-running issue of the televisions on the concourse may be finally solved (breath not held) – any area in which a television is not currently placed is one that is not intended to have one. Some have been removed so as not to encourage large numbers of people congregating in some areas in an already overcrowded concourse. However, in order to hopefully stem the complaints about missing sets, the club will look at removing the empty brackets that remain. The remaining TV's have been serviced so those that haven't been turned on recently are definitely not faulty, they've just been turned off by some dilweed steward. Dilweed stewards will be told not to turn TV's off.

Smoking ban

80% of fans voted in favour of a smoking ban in a recent poll ran by the club. The club are happy to implement such a ban whenever the committee feels it necessary, although with Football League likely to impose such restrictions next summer this may not be necessary. Once this diktat is received, the club will examine ways of facilitating those who wish to smoke at half-time, possibly by copying Derby’s excellent system of creating a small pen outside the ground that is fully stewarded and may offer catering facilities too.

Away Direct

Negative comments about the seating allocation for Away Direct members at Norwich were once again raised, although some present thought there seats at Carrow Road were quite good. The club is usually instructed by the home side to sell tickets farthest from the home fans first, although City do seek to over-ride this instruction by offering the best seats to Away Direct members wherever possible.

Playing kit

One member requested that City wear black and amber at away games wherever possible in the future. The reason behind the recent spate of wearing light blue at away matches was due to Phil Parkinson, who wanted to stick with the same kit that brought success at Southend. Next season’s kits, which the chairman is yet to unveil (likewise the sponsor), will be 'more sharp and crisp in design'. Although Adam Pearson has steadfastly refused to reveal the identity of the new supplier, we have a sneaky feeling it will be a company who's logo is a double diamond. Ahem. the new away kit will be all white, a welcome return to tradition.

Miscellaneous

Although they are not convinced of the need for such a service, the ticket office will trial-run opening after home games – the fixtures on which it does so will be announced shortly.

The club is reviewing the matchday bookmaker arrangements, new commercial director Andy Dawson bragged of his contacts with Ladbrokes and he will oversee the replacement of the current company running the concourse bookies.

The Sports Bar was praised, 'very good' said the Sports Bar rep who has been asking for more stools since the move to the KC Stadium, he's finally got them! The new bar manager was complimented also. The club wishes to restore interest in the bar, and as well as cutting the admission cost will seek to advertise it more heavily now that the facilities within are improved.

City have an initial allocation of 3,000 tickets for the Leeds away fixture – this is likely to suffice, although more can be requested if necessary.

A request from a supporter for a pre season tour of Norway was aired but not commented upon.

Parkinson Departure

External advice was extensively sought by the Chairman before the Parkinson appointment in the summer and he was the standout choice. Adam Pearson feels that fundamentally Phil Parkinson is a good manager and that he will succeed at another club, though he acknowledges that any success may come as a result of lessons learned from his time at Hull City. If appointing him was a mistake then it was a mistake that several other clubs were prepared to make in the summer, Ipswich, Derby, Preston and Charlton all courted Parkinson but he chose to come here and at the time it was seen as a coup to land such a highly thought of, up and coming boss. Pearson doesn't feel another Championship chairman would have chosen differently.

Asked when the decision to push Parkinson was made, the Chairman said he was happy with the Norwich performance, feeling we had turned the corner, and was '110% behind him at that point'. Even after the Colchester debacle which was described as 'a major concern', the decision to move the manager on had not been made. He said it was as late as Sunday afternoon following the Southampton defeat, when after pondering the next six games, games he feels are 'vital' to City's chances of retaining Championship status, he didn't feel confident that Parkinson could have inspired the players to produce the performances needed.

Did the Chairman regret giving Phil Parkinson the public backing he gave him? It's a tricky one he concedes. Maybe in hindsight to say the manager would not be sacked no matter what happens was not right but he wants to give the manager an atmosphere he can work in and not feel he cannot do his job properly because of the threat of the sack. Pearson pointed to the recent situation at Norwich where the boss was told he had three games to get it right, this isn't right says Adam, all you get then is 'a dead man walking'. He knows as well that the press will not accept a simple 'the manager has the backing of the club' statement and will continually ask 'so how long has he got then?' in response which leads to unequivocal backing to (hopefully) end the speculation and let the manager get on with his job.

When asked how this leaves the club from a financial standpoint the Chairman stressed that 'we shouldn't be hung up on finances' and that the amount of compensation due to the manager should he be fired was never a factor in whether he stayed. He did though admit that the sheer amount of money spent by Parkinson since the summer will hinder the next manager, adding that 'a substantial amount of private income' injected into the club has been spent. The Chairman added that the club is financially structured so that we could handle relegation if it were to happen, 'it doesn't frighten us going down, it frightens us more finding the money to stay up!'. Even if relegation would not be financially debilitating the Chairman knows it must be avoided for the sake of 'the momentum of the football club'. Where finances are concerned Pearson feels the club will have to trade better in the future, and that maybe our rigid 'we're not a selling club' ideology will need some change. The chairman also believes that for the third season is a row the recruitment of players was done poorly, and while he acknowledges that he is the man signing the cheques, he wants to give the Hull City manager, whoever that may be, his full backing in the transfer market and will continue to do so.

Where did it all go wrong? Adam Pearson feels that a mistake was made not getting the backroom staff right from the start, a situation that led to a change in late October when Frank Barlow departed and Phil Brown was brought in. When asked the question himself, Parkinson said that he felt the fitness of the players going into the season was wholly inadequate and felt during the West Brom game on opening day that this was a big problem since the club faced 3 games in 8 days. Because of this concern, the manager adopted a conservative approach following the game at The Hawthorns and felt we never fully recovered from a poor start, a start he attributes to the players not taking fitness seriously enough. The players have been told in no uncertain times that they have let a good man down, and Pearson feels that the respect that the players have for the club has been eroded in the last three months. The players also know how important the next six games are

No timeframe has been set for the appointment of a new manager, and Phil Brown and Colin Murphy need to be given time to prepare the team for Saturday's trip to Plymouth. Asked what he's looking for in a boss the Chairman said we need 'an impact manager' with experience. An internal appointment hasn't been ruled out, and Brown and Murphy are said to have a good rapport with the players, but Pearson will wait to see if any external managers come forward in the next 24 hours and will choose the outstanding candidate. Asked if he knows who he wants, the Chairman simply replied 'yes'.

Next month

The next meeting will take place on Monday 8th January 2007. The guest for this will be Sean White, the matchday commander of Humberside Police, who has accepted in writing an invitation from Danny Pratt to attend and answer the many concerns about the policing of City fixtures.

We would therefore like to invite as many comments and suggestions as possible for him. Mr White is the man accountable for the policing at the Circle and is perfectly placed to explain their actions and decisions. A thread will be opened on the message board closer to the time, however if you simply can’t wait to get your message to Mr White, please feel free to e-mail the editors at the usual addresses. (AD/LM)