Debbie Cook interview

25 minute interview with Matt Dean.

https://t.co/L5Yt1N7YRF

I  have just listened to it. To summarise over £100k spent at BP plus more at the academy and Cheapside grounds. Work is still being done on the new training ground and a no commitment as to when it will start. We're staying at BP unless we sell out every game, but it could change.

As far as the new shirts go they were ordered in February and doubled the previous order to 1,000 shirts. Nobody knew at that time, given our league position, that we would be promoted with 5,600 season tickets sold. 1,200 seats are allocated for away fans (various reasons ) and the club is talking to the Trust to sort out how best to allocate away tickets for our fans.

The team travel to Tenerife on Friday with no local games planned, 22 players, 11 playing against 11 ( her words).

Some headlines -
Circa £200k spent on painting, pitches, pissers
Away allocation at BP 1,200 max - using the structural segregation of stand (makes absolute sense to me)
Loyalty scheme for our away trips being looked at with the Trust.

The mantra that we are not filling Blundell Park keeps being repeated - which I find a bit strange; we are not filling it to the nominal capacity, but no game since all-seater conversion has ever got within 600 that nominal capacity - its clearly not the useable capacity (perhaps Matt Dean needs to use that line in the questions). 3 games last year in the 5th tier were home sellouts and many were close to that. What I found interesting was maybe there was a hint from Debbie that redevelopment of BP might actually be a serious option - the ground has "soul" implying that others (new ones) are soulless (which we already know). Maybe I'm reading too much into that, but maybe not...?

really good interview
new fan survey coming out, to check their progress with fans
dealt with the shirt issue.
New commercial manager appointed Jo Taylor - another local female appointed to a top job
Pretty firm commitment to making the Osmond corner a home fan family enclosure, with the rest of the Osmond (1200) given to away fans. That means 600 extra seats, which surprises me, as i didn't think it was that big

Think it's prett safe to assume from what she said that Fenty had basically spent naff all and the ground has been allowed to dilapidate

Just the place to put the family stand right next to the away fans  

Quoted from Madeleymariner

Just the place to put the family stand right next to the away fans  

Wasn’t it half full of families most of last season, and isn’t the Osmond end of the Main currently the family section?

In the list of improvements to BP Debbie didn't mention the dilapidated PA system, please tell me this has been done as its currently not fit for purpose

Quoted from Simon

In the list of improvements to BP Debbie didn't mention the dilapidated PA system, please tell me this has been done as its currently not fit for purpose

They’ve talked about this since they took over, it’s an ongoing issue that is continually explored. I think the issue was the outrageous costs to adapt and improve it…

It's never been great but the PA system seemed at it's worst last night.  Just a muffled noise.

Interesting stuff about the away capacity and reclaiming of the corner for Town fans.  I agree that not filling BP shouldn't be seen as a lack of intent from the fanbase.  There's a large proportion of the ground that just isn't going to get filled on a regular basis simply because the views are so poor, rather than an increase in numbers from the 600 in the Main/Osmond corner I'd see it as replacing those type seats.  

Hoping there's more to come in terms of increasing the overall capacity but great to see the club are putting stuff in place now.

Quoted from diehardmariner

Interesting stuff about the away capacity and reclaiming of the corner for Town fans.  I agree that not filling BP shouldn't be seen as a lack of intent from the fanbase.  There's a large proportion of the ground that just isn't going to get filled on a regular basis simply because the views are so poor, rather than an increase in numbers from the 600 in the Main/Osmond corner I'd see it as replacing those type  

I'd like to see at least some acknowledgment that restricted views and the stadium facilities itself can be somewhat off putting in maximising attendance but that doesn't seem to fit the current narrative being spun.

If the bar to moving is us achieving 9k gates at Blundell park then that simply isn't physically possible, nomatter how many time they say we have 9k capacity (or even more seats in some interviews)