[Official Site] FAN ENGAGEMENT FORUM | 21/10/2021

FAN ENGAGEMENT FORUM | 21/10/2021
Club News

Chief Executive Officer, Khaled El-Ahmad sat down with members of the fan engagement group on Thursday night, alongside colleagues Beth Sefton and Andrew Clark to discuss pressing issues at the Club.

Continue reading on the official site...

 

The well fell down last season, was rebuilt back in the spring and yet nobody has bothered to check that the rest of it is safe until now? I'm sorry but that's simply not acceptable at all and is to be honest ******* incompetence bordering on negligence.

With stands built in the 90s sorting barriers is fine but not in a hundred year old stand. Good news, the lower tier was built in the 90s...

The Refreshment stands in the east stand are high too. When are you closing that Khaled?

Khaled saying 'if we've not been clear then I'm sorry' sounds very much like the celebrities who always come out with the classic line 'i haven't done anything wrong but if the woman thinks I acted inappropriately then I'm sorry' it's a none apology that sounds so hollow and fake.

Now admitting that the initial statement was wrong and directors ARE staying in the west stand. How unfortunate for them still getting to stuff their faces in their oak paneled boardrooms

Khaled saying he still believes they've been transparent at every stage screams to me that he's absolutely incompetent and not capable of leading a professional club.

He and his employers lie constantly and hide information then say people should trust him? No chance mate.

The excuses for the vouchers makes no sense. They experienced printing delays THEN had to delay due to box office staff reprinting tickets and THEN got then they've had more issues. Eh? That timeline doesn't make sense. I bought my ticket SIX months ago and closing the west stand 2 weeks ago is why I haven't had my vouchers yet? Rubbish




Seems like other than constant excuses for the west stand they didn't even discuss any of the big issues that fans have. Absolute dogshit and a slap in the face of fans.

At least they tried a bit of bribery with beer though but Patrick did it better with actual alcohol.

 

Fair play to them for publishing that on the official site because it does not read well at all.
The reply about worries of relegation is flippant at best.

 

youd have thought so wouldn’t you, as I’m sure the wall could fall outwards as well as inwards, so they’d be just as liable if it collapsed and fell onto the pavement onto some poor passer by, which is a risk 24/7 not just for 3 hours every other week for 9 months of the year?

 

My view. Sort out your petty squabbles and fix your damn sh it.

I'm out for a bit, sick and tired of it all.

 

Oh dear.

 

Reading that was depressing.

 

Correct me if I’m wrong here but I’m pretty sure the whole of the ground doesn’t have to be accessible under the disability act - just that disabled supporters have equality of access to the stadium and its facilities. We meet that and were the first club to have a dedicated disabled stand. Similarly, the West Stand Lower is the most accessible part of the ground with no ( or very few) steps from turnstile to seat. That’s why we moved there with my 80 year old father who was becoming increasingly immobile!

 

I'm going to complain about the stairs to the east upper. I'll have it shut by Sunday

 

Far be it from me to defend anyone, but this morning everyone was asking what was said at the meeting and reading all sorts of rumours and undercurrents in to what was tweeted last night.
It might not be what we want to hear, but I don't think we can complain about the transparency about what was said specifically last night.
It quashes a lot of the rumours and conjecture that have been floating around mostly not on the BBS but on other forums.
It's pretty depressing as mentioned above, but at least it's a public statement of record.
I'm sure the people who demanded the thing should be published but knew full well it wouldn't, will now say they don't believe a word of it, but they'd have said that if a video of it was published.
We're in a poor situation on and off the pitch, but even if we think the manager is out of his depth, let's get behind the players on Sunday and try and help them claw themselves out of it.

 

But remember whilst it reads as a full transcript it isn't. It's an edited partial transcript that leaves bits out for some reason

 

The level of professionalism off the pitch is matched by performances on it.

 

Fair point.
Can anyone who was there last night update this thread with any major or significant minor omissions that might change the way we read the transcript?

 

I hadn't realised from the updates yesterday that he'd got Beth and other staff alongside him. Is this normal for the Engagement Forums?

Beth in particular is one of the most respected members of the club's staff with supporters, and has had a pretty thankless task in being one of the front of house staff dealing with the West Stand evictees. Reading the transcript, it almost feels like at times she was being used, perhaps in a way she wasn't entirely comfortable with, to justify some of the responses.

It could be simply that reading back a transcript doesn't convey the mood of the meeting, but I'd be interested to get the thoughts of those in attendance regarding this. If it's standard practice for these meetings then that's less likely to have been the case.

 

Thank you to the club and supporters trust for posting this. As someone who suggested they ought to have published the video of the meeting, I'll accept that this is a full and transparent account of the discussion. It does seem pretty brief mind, for the time that was apparently invested.

Having been communicated with in the manner both the club and the supporters trust think most appropriate, I'll hold my tongue on how it makes me feel as a supporter. My folks taught me well not to say anything if I've nowt constructive to say.

The only constructive thing I can manage is: guys, please get round a table and sort your **** out.

 

Beth goes to them all I think, or at least it's not unusual for her to attend and speak.

 

Unless the matchday drinkers account was completely making up some of his tweets (which I'm certain he wasn't) then this transcript misses out a LOT of the meeting.

 

I'm pretty certain she has done this before and the way it came across to me was that she was onboard with the decision to close it, given her analogy. Fair enough.

 

As I put above I'd like Gally or someone else trustworthy who was there to give us a summary of anything they felt has been deliberately left out, or anything that was said that when taken in context changes the general feel of the transcript.