It’s Day 36 since the passing of the seven-day deadline to complete a takeover of Yeovil Town set by Scott Priestnall, our chairman, owner and even more shockingly spectator.
We’re all bored of hearing the ‘in the know’ anonymous social media accounts (I always preferred Rocky) tell us what’s happening or when it’s happening, we all just want some kind of certainty, don’t we? Let’s not go back over the reasons why.
But, if Mr Priestnall was present to see the best part of 8,000 people inside Huish Park (with thanks to the couple of thousand making the trip up from the Dorset coast) for Saturday’s FA Cup third round tie with AFC Bournemouth, I wonder what he thought.
We tweeted some pictures of a packed Thatcher’s stand after the match and made the point the ‘magic’ of the FA Cup may have brought them here, but it really doesn’t need magic to achieve this, does it?
In the summer, Scott Priestnall promised “a more inviting a more inviting and entertaining offer” for supporters; it’s an obvious improvement, but it’s one he’s failed to deliver.
There’s a group of hard-working staff behind the scenes who are doing everything they can, often with their hands tied behind their backs, and then there’s a group of volunteers without whom the operations of the club would literally grind to a halt.
If you don’t know who they are, they will be the people selling the lottery tickets and programmes, sweeping the stands, handing out cans from the makeshift bars.
There’s a lot of things which need to change from top to bottom, but here’s a few things that could make things better pretty quickly…..
- Give the place a tidy up: Behind the Thatcher’s terrace looks like a dumping ground with landfill strewn all over the place, but the entrance to Huish Park is like an assault course – water hazards, little lighting, plastic drums blocking the entrance/exit nearest to Abbey Manor. It’s a bad look, potentially very dangerous and could be fixed. Hire a skip (or three!), mobilise an army of volunteers and make the place look a bit tidier. Yes, there will be things which require more permanent work – but there’s a few things which can be done to make things look better quickly.
- Keep the doors open: The opening of the Alec Stock Lounge for supporters has been a good move (we assume the marquee has been left to rot?) but surely keeping it open longer would pay dividends. There was a captive audience of nearly 8,000 people there on Saturday, if you can keep even a small percentage of them after the game – it will begin to pay for itself. In the temporary bar behind the home and away terrace (presumably the bright vision of a “new bar area” the Chairman promised in the summer) staffed by volunteers, why isn’t there pints poured or cans available at a reasonable price ready to go? Again, not a criticism of those who are doing something, they are doing the best with what they have.
- Contactless payments: The past two matches have seen long queues at the ticket offices and yet there’s no sign of any kind of e-ticket offer from the club – unless we’ve missed it? Surely the cost of printing thousands of tickets season after season must be greater than getting some QR Code scanners for each turnstile? And while we’re at it, why is there no card payments in the tea bars? Even a sole trader can get a simple, cheap card payment service – so why not for the tea bars?
- Communicate better: It sounds like the simplest thing to do and you’ll never please all the people all the time, but regular communication with people is a great place to start. We’ve all spent the last 18 months communicating virtually with people and this would be a great way to get started and then commit to a regular forum for doing it.
Of course there are other things, like helping out the dwindling members of staff on the club’s books right now, getting some of our star players tied down to new contracts, there’s lots more than can be done and these are just a couple quick, free (or inexpensive) fixes.
For too many years we have got by doing what we always did off-the-field whilst exceeding expectations on it, but if our dream of a return to the Football League is to become a reality, we have to do things differently.
None of this is rocket science and you could probably all think of many other simple fixes; they won’t achieve getting us back to the League, but they might encourage a few hundred floating fans who turned up on Saturday to return.
If they do, that’s a step in the right direction and a direction we should be travelling.