Meeting with the club 21st July

We met with David Bottomley and Andrew Kelly from the club on Tuesday morning to discuss a range of ongoing issues.

Season tickets for 2020/21

We started the meeting in consultations about season tickets for next season, the pricing of them, the matchday admission charges, and the new card that will be introduced for the new season. The Trust have been given the list of season ticket prices and admission details for next season, and will report back to the club with concerns and questions. Those matters including pricing have been requested by the club to be kept confidential until they make a statement in the near future following this consultation.

We stressed the importance that the club had to ensure the season ticket launch was right first time around and as well as being involved in the consultation over season tickets, it was important the Trust be involved in the launch of them as well. The club accepted this and agreed to further discussions before the launch and the Trust agreed to support the club with this.

We discussed the restrictions that will be placed upon clubs once supporters are allowed to return from the start of October, both in terms of the guidance provided by the EFL and its impact on match attending supporters. As with everything else in the current climate, this is an ongoing situation and highly likely to be changed on a number of occasions before supporters are allowed back in.

The proposal previously made by the Trust regarding the remaining unused six tickets in the season tickets from 2019-20 that we have been in continual discussions with the club since the end of last season has been agreed, and an announcement will be out before the end of this week with regards to that.

Team updates

We spoke about Dale manager Brian Barry-Murphy and the lack of communication from him on any matter since March. It was confirmed that this was as a direct result of being furloughed and that any comment from him would be in direct contradiction of his furlough status.

The return of Brian Barry-Murphy and the playing staff from furlough to preseason training will be dictated to by any announcement from the EFL. It is hoped that an announcement for a start date for the 2020-21 season could be confirmed before the end of this week.

New kit launch

We asked about the new kit. It was stated in the club’s Covid19 story last week that the sale of the new kit had been delayed. The new kit and sale of season tickets will both be launched on the same date in August.

Dale Lotto

We followed up on the meeting that was held regarding the changes to Lotto. We have been frustrated that we have not been able to publish this so far. It was requested by the club not to publish this at this moment in time due to a couple of ongoing matters. We have reluctantly agreed to this but it is our intention to publish the report as soon as we can once those matters are resolved.

Attracting families survey

The Trust informed the club that they would be conducting a survey on the supporting habits of families at the Crown Oil Arena. Given that we will be wanting the club to act upon the outcomes of this survey, we have given them a copy before it goes live and asked them for suggestions as to how this can be improved. This is a follow up to research conducted by the Trust into what other clubs have successfully done to attract families to home matches.

We have requested to the club that a member of the Trust be allowed to attend the club’s Safety Advisory Group meeting ahead of the season as part of the preparations for dealing with supporters attending matches with Covid-19 restrictions in place. The club said they would look into this and let us know.

Communication with fans

We strongly urged the club again to improve the communication with supporters and cited a number of issues that needed addressing publicly with supporters. We explained that the Fans Forum in February and the recent statements by Andrew Kelly and Andrew Kilpatrick had made a real difference in terms of maintaining that communication, and that this had to be the benchmark set. Too long was left between updates, and whilst we appreciated that a number of employees had been furloughed in recent weeks, supporters have been left in the dark as seen with the Brian Barry Murphy situation. The club confirmed that they would be providing supporters with an update before the end of the week on a range of matters. We stated that this needs to be done on a weekly basis, and not intermittently.

Actions to follow:

  1. Trust to report back to the club concerns and questions regarding season ticket, admissions and the new card
  2. Club and Trust to continue consultation before season ticket launch
  3. Trust to make a statement this week regarding the unused tickets from 2019-20 season ticket
  4. Club to provide supporters with an update this week over matters at Spotland
  5. Club to advise the Trust about attending Safety Advisory Group meeting
  6. Trust to follow up on Lotto meeting and report back as soon as we can
  7. Club to offer feedback to the Trust before launching Attracting Families survey
  8. Trust to launch Attracting families survey before publishing report
  9. Trust to monitor club’s communication, follow up on any gaps and report back to members