To the Moon and Back

Adam Pearson - the big cheese

So, the first Fans' Forum meeting, delayed by a few minutes while Adam Pearson offered to serve soft drinks from behind the bar to anyone who wanted one, whilst declining to pay £150,000 for a player through the medium of his mobile phone. And a very open meeting it was too, unless you want to discuss our increasingly present hooligan element, that is. Don't get me wrong, Adam Pearson, who chaired the meeting, leaving Danny Pratt (the Fans' Liaison Officer) to faithfully scribble raised points and action plans down on a spirally bound A4 pad, is a very open, warm character who offered to instigate meeting after meeting with the right people to sort out problems raised. These varied from the woefully inadequate and expensive catering at the Ark, to sorting the stewarding out - but he fenced off my verbal prods to discuss hooligans with "Yeah, we'll come to that one later," albeit with a gently rounded Yorkshire twang.

The Fans Forum consists of 11 men and two boys - one of whom is the self-acclaimed voice of the yoof (sic), representatives from City Independent and Amber Nectar; the official web site; Teletext; the organiser of Premier League clubs forums; Tigers Co-operative and representative from all areas of the ground. And Les Motherby.

Adam Pearson gave a brief introduction to the meeting in the style of a monologue about the colour of the seats in the new stadium. This was done as though we were all aware of the details of the issue - we were not. The message boards on Amber Nectar and the City Independent appear to have been examining the debate surrounding seat colour in detail, and one individual appears to have launched a campaign against the club in an attempt to have more amber seats introduced: they're 95% black and white, don't you know. Adam proclaimed that this would cost £50,000 of his own hard earned. He then asked each of us in turn to introduce ourselves and suggest a point to be discussed. Two hours later and we have finally circumnavigated the points-of-view of the people sitting round the table. The journey visited policing, stewarding, parking, the price of tickets on match days, should stewards enforce that we remain seated throughout the match (not in the East Stand, we are told), etc. Danny Pratt will transcribe his scribbles to produce some minutes, assuming that he has made enough notes - he appeared to turn a little white as Adam suggested that he write the minutes for this meeting.

There will only be two "policed" games next season, these being Lincoln and Scunthorpe. There were comments made about the over-presence of the boys in blue last season, who on several occasions formed two lines extending from the East Stand down to Boothferry Road, preventing many from treading the direct route back to their cars. Adam was genuinely surprised to hear about this, which is in itself surprising. He promised to meet with the police to discuss these heavy-handed tactics. The club was charged around £50000 last season for this service. At least there will be some money saved there then.

Naturally, much was asked about the new stadium. There are plans by the Council to discuss a rail halt for home fans. There may well be a park-and-ride, certainly from the Humber Bridge but the Council is reviewing other routes. Catering will be of a high quality and at prices set by the club. Beer will be served at the ground, and the day's game may be replayed on television sets around the concourse.

Kylie Minogue - housewarmer for new stadium?

Adam wants the new stadium to visibly be our home on match days. Fans will be encouraged to bring flags into the ground and there are plans to be have a large banner on the upper terrace of the West Stand, a large tiger and/or a City badge on a sheet covering the centre-circle (shaken, no doubt, Champions League style). We can also expect to see the Beautiful South perform some of their hits as a curtain raiser before kick-off in the new stadium against Sunderland. Those who you who are wondering what it will be like to see David Beckham driving wide a twenty yard free kick in the new stadium may not have to wait too long. We will be playing them in a promotion/stadium celebration friendly at the end of the season. The £2 levy on those making a last minute decision to attend may well be waived in a drive to keep capacities up. This was as a result of a discussion and is just one example that he is prepared to listen to points raised. Just when you thought it couldn't get any better, the first of many Hull City organised gigs in the new stadium could well be........ Kylie Minogue. She has already agreed the fee.

These meetings will, if this one is anything to go by, be open and frank. Do I push the hooligan topic again and risk disturbing the friendly atmosphere? Perhaps the idea of these forums is simply to give Adam the opportunity to project a listening persona to the people of Hull. I hope it will be more productive than that. Adam hopes to attend them all and appears to be genuinely interested in what everyone has to say. Could anyone have envisaged a forum with past regimes? OK, Don Robinson may well have told us he will hold it on the moon. Adam Pearson is much more down to earth than that. Good times indeed.