This is highly unusual I know, but we were told in yesterday’s meeting that we were free to communicate the discussion we had around matchday catering ahead of the official minutes being released.
Before anyone gets all uppity about secrecy, we discuss a lot and some of it is not suitable for mass consumption for one reason or another. Therefore, we wait until the minutes are out before talking too much, but everyone around the table agreed that the recent issues at the Bank have been significant enough to warrant immediate feedback.
The topic dominated much of our discussions and as many of you know, Chief Executive Liam Scully tweeted the night before admitting things hadn’t been great. If you missed it, his noted Tweet can be found here.
An honesty shout to all LCFC fans…
Thank you for your feedback and patience #UTI #ImpsAsOne
?⚪️⚽️ pic.twitter.com/XLH8N3v3Ew— Liam Scully (@liamjscully) August 24, 2018
There have been several contributing issues to factor into the debate, as well as some honest admissions of failings from the club. The level of staffing was addressed and in the main, the answer was apologetic. Temporary bar staff are not easy to find out of term time, but to address the issues there were additional staff drafted in yesterday from elsewhere. As far as I’m aware, the queuing was not as much of an issue. Please do be aware whilst a queue of 20 minutes is not acceptable, a queue of just under ten minutes is about right for a Football League club.
Anyone at Cambridge last season would have killed for a queue of half an hour.
With regards to out of stock food, Outside Event Caterers are new to Sincil Bank and are still therefore assessing supply and demand around the stadium. I know that instances of things being out of stock are addressed as they come up, so please if you have feedback in that area why not email the club feedback@redimps.com, rather than take to social media.
Points were raised around the fan zone too, not only queuing but also the variety on offer outside as well as the serving of warm beer and Coke from empty buckets on the ground. These are being addressed and you should see improvements, not only yesterday but also going forward.
I’m not going to pull any punches, the Bury match was farcical in many ways and the club acknowledge this. They perhaps wouldn’t use that term, but Liam did demonstrate that there were lessons to be learned. We’ve fed things back to the club, as have the SLOs and people who directly contacted the club, to a point where I understand it has been addressed at a higher level too.
I don’t believe the club are trying to rip anyone off, although I do believe the pricing structure is on the expensive side, certainly for a committed match day non-drinker such as myself. I understand how they’re keen to maximise revenue, that should be obvious to anyone who comes to the club. That playing squad we have, those managers and the staff that drive us forward, do not come for free and there’s no magic money tree. Perception is we are a cash-rich club, one would imagine that not to be the case. We need to get pounds out of fans pockets, fairly, if we’re to progress at a rate we’ve become oddly accustomed to.
However, as a member of the supporters board and a fan myself, I will hold the club to account if I feel, or my fellow members feel, that the club are taking and not giving. For the game against Bury, that was the case. Yesterday I don’t know because following the meeting there was little time to test the water, but I understand it was much better.
I just wanted to offer a little feedback so you knew it had been addressed and that things were moving forward. I know a few of my readers (especially a certain taxi-driver) are not huge fans of the Supporter’s Board, but we are just a group of fans who want to discuss grievances you raise where we can.
I know this is a hollow statement too, but isn’t it nice to be complaining about the beer or the pies, rather than the manager or dire football. This club is not in bad shape, anyone who went to Grimsby will know our ground isn’t bad, anyone reading the headlines this morning knows we’ve got a good manager and trusting board. When the pre-match music and food is the biggest gripe we have, we’re not in such a bad place at all.
Up the Imps.
Yes totally agree Gary. All sorts of things went wrong for me yesterday. Today I don’t care. We are top of the league and yesterday the performance was top notch. Just enjoyed Freck’s goal being lauded for the third time on Quest.
As for the fanzione stuff…..just look at the numbers using locals like the Eagle. On your podcast someone said “if I have to drink piss (Carling) then at least I would like it to be warm”. This sums up the thoughts of most I know. To be fair there was ice in the buckets on Saturday….good…..but they were running out of beer at 2pm at our station.
But……..we r top of the league!
Unfortnately, I do feel as if the good will of the fans is being stretched to the absolute limit. I sit in the selenity stand and I did stand in a queue for the whole of the interval (And there were an awful lot of people stood behind me) to buy 2 cups of Tea and a cup of coffee, at times one young lady was trying to serve everyone. Liam Scully may claim that a lot of work is being done behind the scenes, well on the evidence of yesterday, he obviously does not really know what hard work is and I think he should take time out from his half time prawn sandwich to stand at the one catering stand (Serving both selenity stand and Stacey West stand) and see what we have to put up with; he will also see the queue for the toilet!! Regarding the team we are definitely football league; Fans (Whilst we are doing well) are football league; Operations, especially catering, is definitely still non – league (Embarrassing). By the way, not only did I have to wait an age to buy a drink, I was then accussed by the lady from Outside Event Caterers of not paying for the drinks I had purchased (I did pay for the drinks and have witnesses), absolutely disgraceful behaviour by her, but I will be emailing the club as they are as much responsible due to the lack of consideration for fans, by not having sufficient catering and putting what staff there are under un nessecary pressure and stress.
Loving the football but every week I come away frustrated by the length of queues in the Travis Perkins bar area and the the Co-op lower tier facilities. The club is losing income by not matching supply with demand. This Saturday seemed better in the Travis Perkins bar, but was hindered by a lack of change in the till and no-one being able to change a barrel.