Members and fans alike will be aware that the Trust has been in contact and discussion with the club following the Spennymoor game, we reiterate our thanks to Andy Duff and Jamie Willoughby for facilitating.
We have published two statements regarding issues raised. Since then, we have received from the club Managing Director, Andy Duff the following correspondence which addresses many of the concerns we raised in our correspondence yesterday
Club response to matters raised from the weekend.
Thank you to all supporters for attending The Isuzu FA Trophy semi-final. The large number of home tickets purchased was encouraging to see and we’re grateful for the efforts of a number of supporter groups who volunteered in the weeks before and on the day to try and deliver a special occasion.
A number of initiatives were already underway and booked in for our end of season work schedule. However, given the matchday issues that occurred on Saturday, it’s important we communicate these planned improvements in response to the feedback received.
Ticketing System and Access to the ground (turnstiles and scanners)
We are sorry that fans experienced difficulties in entering the stadium and that issues occurred using certain turnstiles and with our current scanners.
I’m pleased to confirm we signed a multi-year partnership with a new Ticketing and Fan Engagement Partner back in March and are now working within the notice period of our current supplier. The scope of this new relationship means fans can purchase season tickets and matchday tickets across a new RAFC ticketing platform available on desktop, mobile and app. Importantly, we’ll also use this change to upgrade, integrate and improve our Access Control system in the turnstiles. We will have new front-facing scanners in the automatic turnstiles and a greater number of mobile scanners available. At the same time, work is planned to fix any defective turnstiles that can be brought back into working order.
An announcement giving more details of our new Ticketing and Fan Engagement Partner will made later this week.
Supporters sitting in their allocated seats and stewarding.
I’ll address stewarding in due course, but it is a Club policy that supporters should sit in the seat they have purchased and are allocated. This will become even more important as we grow attendances to ensure we have a safe and friendly stadium. I appreciate this is a change from past behaviour, but we hope supporters work with us to sit in their purchased seat for the remaining home games of this season and in season 25/26.
This policy also needs to be reinforced by better stewarding, so that any disputes or confusion is managed by appointed stewards and not between supporters. With this in mind, our Head of Operations is already conducting a thorough review and benchmarking exercise to ensure we have the best supplier for next season that meets our needs and is cost-effective. We expect to appoint our supplier for season 25/26 in May and will confirm this arrangement in due course.
Bringing food into the stadium
As a general rule, food and drinks purchased outside of the ground cannot be brought into the stadium for consumption. We tried to introduce some new initiatives for his game, specifically working with our catering partner to set up a BBQ outside the Ratcliffe Bar, and hope we can continue with other food offerings in the season ahead. This change was, however, overlooked as part of the steward briefing and there was a breakdown in the matchday planning process. Moving forward we’ll brief to ensure stewards are aware that food purchased from club catering providers can come into the stadium and apologise for any inconvenience to fans who weren’t able to do this last Saturday.
Queues for food and drinks
Saturday was a busy game and a large amount of detailed planning went into the day with an increase in staff numbers to reflect the expected crowd numbers. There are always going to be pinch points at certain times and locations, but we will conduct a full review at season end to understand the flows around the ground and build a better plan for next season.
Subject to costs, a few changes are already underway:
- Planning approval was received last Friday to change the use of the store area under match control into a kiosk. This change is now being costed along with the resources needed to open the facility as a new kiosk.
- The Board have already decided that Away fans will be in the Willbutts Lane Stand for all home league games in season 25/26. This will open up the whole of the Smith Metals Family Stand facilities for use by home fans for every league game. It should be noted that the bar area and Desmond’s Den Family Area seem to offer different things for different groups, so we need to look at this at the end of the season and come up with a whole stadium plan, as part of wider consultation with supporters.
- The club have received a request via the CAB for certain fan groups to move from Sandy Lane and create a singing section in Pearl Street. In light of the events on Saturday this request is now under review by GMP / the Safety Advisory Group and will be considered by the club in consultation with all supporters and the authorities.
I hope this update addresses the points raised but please come back to me collectively via the appropriate channels if anything remains unanswered.
Andy Duff
Managing Director – Rochdale AFC
The Trust is grateful to Andy Duff for permitting us to post this update.