With season ticket sales at least as high as last season, we were informed the 10% (350) of the attempts to buy season tickets by the (apparently illegal) post-dated cheque and the direct debit methods have failed due to bad credit / bounced cheques. This is an alarmingly high number - are people really this dishonest? Before you ask - I did purchase by this route, and no my cheque didn't bounce. These people have generously been given the chance to cough-up before the first game of the season. Failure to oblige will result in a refund of any successful instalments.
There has been some discussion in recent Fora of the facilities available to the discerning young Tiger. Crèches, replica outfits of the smaller fitting, sleepsuits, the Young Tigers club, bedroom items (not the Anne Summers variety - although you never know - how about a line in Tiger condoms: black for playing away). There will be an improved range of clothes and the crèche, on the site of the brick toilet house in West Park will probably open in October. At the last meeting, Pearson offered to investigate the probability of re-starting the old Young Tiger's club. This offered training sessions with staff / players, birthday cards etc. A slight problem of communication within the club was outed as Pearson reported to us that he had since discovered that the club had never ceased to operate.
The KC stadium, although almost completed internally, now that the ticket office refurbishment to provide two extra windows is underway, is undergoing some external work. There is promise of a weather-cheating canopy affixed to the stadium outside the ticket office to keep queuing ticket-purchasers dry. This has been mentioned by Pearson before, but appears to have been forgotten about. We were promised that it would be tabled at the next meeting between the Hull City Council and the Stadium Management Committee. These may be interesting meetings - but not half as much as those between the chairs of the SMC, Hull City and Hull FC. Mr Pearson, acting in his role as chair of the SMC, requests the vote from Hull FC chair Kath Hetherington supporting her future tenancy at the stadium, before turning to the chairman of Hull City for his casting vote. There is still landscaping of parkland surrounding the stadium to be done as well as crude re-surfacing the car park on Walton Street. The experience of exiting the car park on the Walton street site is hopefully to be improved with plans afoot to make Walton Street an approximation of one-way in that traffic leaving the car park at the Anlaby Road end will be directed to Anlaby Road, and those exiting at the Spring Bank West end will leave... I think you get the message. It's only a pity that the Council did not consider this until a councillor experienced the chaos first hand following the Elton John concert at the stadium in July. It has often been mentioned at meetings that the method of stewarding the car park could be improved if the stewards were more pro-active in directing traffic. We are told, however, that the stewards have no power to direct traffic outside of the car park.
There is to be a South Stand clock. This will be a digital affair and not, as members had hoped for, an analogue one similar to Boothferry Park's North Stand clock. It was to be in place by the start of the season, but this timeline was not met.
There was a discussion about the pre-season friendlies. Security at the home game against Leeds game naturally was high on the agenda. There was a request by Humberside police that all pubs in Hull should close. This was subsequently over-turned by the Magistrate's Court following an appeal by a number of pub tenants. Pearson explained that he had been placed in an awkward position over this. If he had decided to keep the stadium bars open on match day whilst other pubs had decided to close, there would have been resentment from publicans toward Pearson. In the event, pubs did stay open, and there was some trouble around the stadium and in the city centre. I think it is fair to say that the police over-reacted about this fixture and, as Pearson said in the press recently, if he police succeed in stifling our liberty pre-match then the thugs have won.
With Boothferry Park suffering sustained vandalism and with the Stadium Manager, John Cooper, only having one day a week to maintain the playing surface following reserve team and fans, the decision has been made to end Hull City's tenancy at the end of this season.
City now train at Brantingham Fields. There are plans to develop this facility. There are incentives to the first team if the season goes well. The team will travel the day before certain fixtures and the quality of hotel afforded them will be decided by the team's league status.
This meeting was dominated by a discussion between members and Margaret and Frank Beill representing the Tiger's Co-operative. Pearson had received a letter from the Tigers (sic) Lair requesting that he attended their opening ceremony and wanted to discuss this. There was general surprise to hear that the Co-op had nothing to do with the Lair. The Co-op had given the Lair a £10k unconditional interest free loan as part of the £40k required to start the members only club. The payment was agreed at a "well attended" Co-op meeting with no repayment date and no share in the Lair's profits or surpluses, call them what you will. At the Lair's conception, David Medcalf, whose pre-club opening press release on behalf of the Lair stated that the club was to be a place to "Join the lads in the bar..." was still a member of the Co-op (as were all who formed the Lair). He has since stepped down from his role in the Co-op although he is still listed as being the Chair of the Co-op on their website. The Monty Python-esque situation of the Co-op being an "Independent Supporters' Association" and the Lair being an "Independent Supporters' Club" does not help either's cause. It is apparent though, that fully paid membership of the Co-op also gives you free membership of the Lair. The Co-op and the Lair have subsequently issued a statement clarifying the situation between the two clubs, err, no, associations. Confusing indeed.
This article is courtesy of the Southern Supporters Club.