After each matchday programme, we will be publishing the 'From the Boardroom' article on our website. For Easter Monday's match against Yeovil Town, Coventry City Chief Executive Dave Boddy wrote the column and his article is published below:
"Good afternoon and a warm welcome to the Ricoh Arena to the players, officials and supporters of Yeovil Town FC who visit us for this SkyBet League Two fixture as we approach the exciting “business end” of the season. I would particularly like to welcome their Chairman, John Fry, who I met for the first time at the EFL Conference in Portugal last summer and spent some time with. I am in admiration of how John and his colleagues have run their club, over a long period of time.
Our Early Bird Season Tickets went on sale in mid-March and sales to date have been good with us already passing the 500 mark. Our on-sale date was moved forward a month from last season in line with the way that most other EFL Clubs operate, as was the deadline for the end of the Early Bird period to 23rd April.
We will not be extending the deadline for Early Bird purchases, as we have done in previous seasons. However, we will be adding a second tier of Early Bird prices from the 24th April this will close on 3rd June when we will know which division we are playing in next season. The deadline to retain your existing seats, will be extended to this date.
The current Early Bird offer remains the cheapest way to watch Sky Blues next season and the benefits of being a Season Ticket holder have been there for all to see this season with the away FA Cup tie tickets at MK Dons and Brighton being limited to Season Ticket holders only along with several away League games. Any Season Ticket holder existing or new will also get priority for any potential play-off games this season. We would like to thank everybody that has made this commitment to the club.
The “Final Five” match package we promoted prior to the Grimsby game proved very popular with supporters. We are today launching a “Final Push” package for the last 3 games at the same pro-rata price to give supporters the opportunity come and support the lads at cheaper prices.
We received excellent news last week that this seasons PUSB Match Programme was voted runners-up as the best programme in League Two. When I joined the club, one of my first tasks was to re-negotiate the programme contract with publisher’s Ignition as I was not happy with the contractual restrictions and the quality of the production. The new deal has been vindicated in both the quality of the production, sales and profitability. I would like to thank and congratulate Mark Hornby and his team of Alex Lowe and previously Billie Marshall for this success.
Finally, our Head Groundsman at Ryton, Julien Morris left us last month to take up a position of a Regional Inspector of Pitches for the Institute of Groundsmen. Julien was with us for 10 years and played a massive part in the quality of training pitches we have at both Ryton and the Higgs Centre. Julien is our guest at the game today and we thank him and wish him well for the future.
PUSB
Dave
Dave Boddy
Chief Executive
Coventry City Football Club