After each matchday programme, we will be publishing the 'From the Boardroom' article on our website. For Tuesday's game against Portsmouth, Coventry City Chief Executive Dave Boddy wrote the column and his article is published below:
"Good evening and welcome to our game against Portsmouth this evening.
I would like to welcome the staff, players and officials from Portsmouth, and the travelling supporters too. On the back of Saturday’s game against Sunderland, to have another big away contingent here at the Ricoh Arena is great and really adds to the atmosphere which the Sky Blue Army creates themselves.
In the aftermath of Saturday’s game, there were some scenes in Car Park B which we do not want to see at matches. Ourselves, the stadium and the Police agreed a plan to move coaches into Car Park B so that Sunderland fans went directly onto their transport after the match, with this area barriered off away from home supporters. This reduced the chance of the two sets of supporters mixing after the game, which would have certainly have been the case had away coaches remained in Car Park C and Sunderland supporters been required to walk over to there.
The scenes are to be condemned, and I hope that the actions of a minority of supporters did not ruin what was a good day for the majority of supporters. We will undertake our regular post-match meeting with stakeholders at the stadium, and review what if anything we could have done differently.
Tonight’s game sees the next stage of the EFL trial of pay per view live screening of matches on iFollow. This is the second of a three game trial which the EFL have imposed, the first being on the previous round of mid-week League games when we played at Blackpool and the final game being over the next International break weekend. Whilst the iFollow product has dramatically improved over the last 12 months, it’s fair to say that the trial has caused controversy within the EFL member Clubs, particularly with the trial being allowed for the Saturday International weekend fixtures. Nobody spoke louder than Pompey’s Chief Executive, Mark Catlin against the Saturday trial, a view which Coventry City FC 100% supports. We also have grave doubts about the live screening domestically of any League matches and the long term effect that it will have on attendances, which are the lifeblood of football.
There are now just over two weeks before our first ‘An Evening with’ event of the season, when we welcome former Cricketer turned TV personality Phil Tufnell here at the Ricoh Arena, as well as event host Nick Owen from Midlands Today. It promises to be a great night on Friday 19th October, and we look forward to seeing many Sky Blues fans in attendance. If you haven’t booked already, you can still do so at eticketing.co.uk/CCFC or by calling 024 7699 1987 (Option 2).
We will be holding several more non-matchday events throughout the season, as we continue to work to develop revenue streams which will benefit the football club.
At the time of writing, pre-ordered home kits are due to be delivered to supporters early this week.
Shirts were sent to Nike’s European warehouse in Germany on 17th September. From there, they have gone into customs, and were expected to finally reach JustSport’s warehouse on Monday.
JustSport would then work to dispatch shirts to supporters who have pre-ordered as soon as possible, along with the free Nike gift too, with pre-orders are being fulfilled from the JustSport warehouse in the North-East. As such, fans are asked not to visit the Club Shop to collect orders as they will be unable to do so. For any queries regarding individual pre-orders, please contact ccfcclubshop@justsport-group.com
Once all pre-orders are fulfilled, the shirt will be available to buy in the Club Shop at Arena Shopping Park. We anticipate fans will be able to purchase around the end of this week, but will communicate this once the date is confirmed.
I would again like to thank fans for their patience during this time. While we had anticipated that shirts would be delivered to us in September, to then be able to send on to supporters, we apologise that this is slightly later than we had been told.
Last week, we announced the results from what I believe is the club’s first democratic election for an official representative group, in this case the Supporters Forum. This vote was advertised regularly on our website, Twitter, Facebook and in this programme, with a two-week voting period. Some fans have said that they were not aware of the vote, and we will look at further ways to promote the vote in future and extending the voting period. However, we were very pleased with the quality of the candidates who put themselves up for election and look forward to working with the successful candidates.
The Supporters Forum meets regularly and gives fans a real opportunity to engage and feed back directly to the club and its management team. We are continuing to engage positively with several Supporter Groups, with Conor Chaplin and Michael Doyle at the recent Leamington and Warwick Supporters Club meeting and Jordan Willis and Lee Burge visiting the latest Sky Blue Trust meeting. Alongside the player appearances at projects and partner organisations of Sky Blues in the Community, we will continue this strategy with Supporter Groups, and look forward to engaging further with existing and new groups as we continue to be a real Community Club.
Enjoy the game tonight.
PUSB"
Dave Boddy
Chief Executive
Coventry City Football Club