The supporters group meeting January 2005

 

CFC invited the treasurer and Secretary of all Supporters clubs from home and abroad to a meeting to discuss the future of the supporters clubs and to say thank you for the continued support.

 

The meeting agenda was a Q&A session followed by dinner courtesy of Chelsea Football Club.

 

Q&A Session

Present were supporters clubs from around the world (USA, Ireland, Malta, Gibraltar) and various clubs from England namely but not limited to  Saffron Walden, Yorkshire, Bath and Bristol, Swindon, Hastings and Dubai. The meeting was chaired by Simon Arthur – group operations manager, Diane Broom – Supporters Clubs Secretary, Jackie Lacey – Chelsea Village Travel Director and George McCullough. Peter Kenyon joined later on (it was believed he was watching the ManUre Game finish) and Ron Harris who was watching the door!!

 

Simon Arthur opened the meeting by saying thank you to the supporters clubs for all the support shown. It was said that the supporters clubs had not been shown the time or given any consideration in past years, but this was going to change. Diane Broom who runs the supporters clubs was only doing the job part time, as of March 1^st Diane Broom along with George McCullough will be working full time to help the supporters clubs around the world. There was talk of Diane attending the AGMs to see how the clubs are run and give assistance where required.

 

Simon referred to ManUre as a measuring stick in so much that every city in the world has a person wearing a ManUre shirt; and he made clear his intention for Chelsea to achieve this. It was agreed that success on the field is paramount in order for this to be possible, however whether these are the type of supporters CFC need leads to another question, but when it comes to sales of merchandise then this is definitely what Chelsea FC want. Simon stated that they wanted to help us and what did we need from them to help us. He threw the question open to the supporters.

 

The Malta chairman asked first if we could all introduce ourselves, so each chairman/secretary stood up and introduced themselves saying which area/country they represented and how many members they had. Dubai has a low support compared to the USA, Ireland, Malta, and Gibraltar, but as you would expect a reasonable number compared to the UK clubs as there are many more of them spread across the country albeit in smaller pockets.

 

The first question in response to Simon question was about the Club Affiliation fee of £125 a year. Simon asked what this was for? Diane said it had been introduced by Ken Bates, and then asked the question would the supporters be willing to pay £50 and receive a copy of the onside magazine? General consensus was yes but Simon said he saw no logic in this fee. Some of the supporters stated that they didn’t mind paying this fee because it meant that the people paying were true and loyal supporters. Simon argued that with Diane and George now fully employed to look after the supporters they would decide if the club should become an affiliated club or not (they were currently reviewing an application from Kazakhstan). It was decided that the £125 Affiliation fee would be abolished.

 

The next item was the tickets for home and away games. The home game batch allocation was questioned and a request from the Maltese members was whether the overseas supporters clubs could receive more in the way of tickets. The Gibraltar club asked if confirmation on whether the ticket request approval could be issued earlier as flights and hotel accommodation had to be booked in advance and therefore the commitment from overseas travelling supporters was greater than UK clubs. It was agreed that Diane had done a great job up until now and that with her being employed full time to assist the supporters clubs things could only improve. The ticket allocation and issue would be reviewed.

 

Diane said they were considering keeping all the supporters clubs tickets in the same area so whenever we travelled we would always be offered a section in the Shed upper (just left of the goal as you look towards MH stand). There was general agreement for this proposal as some of the supporters had sat here and had a good view and the ticket prices were cheaper.

 

Simon introduced Jackie Lacey who was the director of Chelsea Village Travel. The general opinion of Chelsea village travel is that they are expensive and unhelpful. Jackie said that there had been problems in the past as they had been sold by the club and were now run independently. Jackie went on to say that they had resolved all the problems they faced with the bureaucracy attached being owned by the club. Jackie was keen to stress that they had 1400 supporters travelling to the Barcelona game and 3000 to the carling cup final. Jackie is now able to arrange tickets for the game along with hotel and flights or individually i.e. hotel or just the flight, so they appeared to be more flexible.

 

Our own Joe Colvill stood up and said before he asked his question would just like to say that only twice in his life have the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. The first time was when Torville and Dean won the World Championship skating to Bolero and the second time was when Ron Harris walked in the room. (A round of applause followed). Joe asked the question regarding the Season ticket holders having to sacrifice their seat for away supporters in cup games. Simon took this question and said he was aware of the problems this caused, but stated he was personally looking into an alternative and the reason behind it was for safety. Saffron Walden chairman who himself is a season ticket holder said he agreed with Joes comments however he was at the ManUre cup game and had ManUre fans raining coins and seats down on to the away fans (he had his 11 year old daughter with him!). He accepted the reasoning of safety but said that the club needed to sort this out. Joe stated that other clubs didn’t do this and referred to the Kop, Streftford End and the North Bank. Simon gave his assurance that he was trying to resolve this to enable the season ticket holders to keep their seats but also to ensure that the safety conditions were met.

 

Simon thanked everyone for travelling and said that he wanted to hold more of these and get more input from us. This first meeting was really to say thank you and for the supporters clubs to get to know Chelsea FC staff and each other.

 

We adjourned for Dinner at Arkles (before proceeding to dinner we had a chance to have photos taken)

 

Neil Burnett “The Spy” (Chelsea TV presenter) attended the dinner and had a Chelsea trivia questionnaire to win a signed shirt. The questions were extremely hard and only two clubs got 6 out of 10 so a head to head was held. In the end both clubs were awarded with a shirt. Each Chairman/Secretary was then awarded a signed poster from a player. I was awarded a JT one which I have hanging in my study.

 

The Legend himself then stood up and entertained everyone with an after dinner speech. Joe has the video of this which I would suggest you get a copy of as it was extremely funny.

 

The dinner finished and everyone retired to the Hotel Bar where we sat until 3am when the bar closed.

 

I will be writing to Chelsea with a list of questions if anyone wished to add something then please email me.