After each matchday programme this season, we publish the regular column from the Coventry City board on our website. You can read Coventry City Chief Executive Dave Boddy's column from Wednesday's game against Huddersfield Town below:
"Good evening and welcome to this evening’s game as we face Huddersfield Town here at St Andrew’s Trillion Trophy Stadium.
I would like to extend a warm Sky Blues welcome to the players, staff and officials who join us tonight from Huddersfield.
Last Saturday’s visit to Wycombe Wanderers saw the Sky Blues in front of spectators for the first time since our trip to Ipswich Town back in early March – before the COVID-19 outbreak.
It was good to see fans back in a stadium and our Saturday being back to some sort of normality with spectators arriving and mingling around the stadium prior to the game. Albeit only 2000, it did in my opinion help to create some atmosphere. At the time of writing, we do not know when we can expect the opportunity for Sky Blues fans to attend games here at St Andrew’s, with the latest announcement on the tier system being expected today.
The feeling from local Government prior to today’s announcement was that Birmingham was likely to remain in Tier 3. If that is the case, then there will be a further postponement of supporters being allowed to come to games here. However, we have the plans in place and look forward to being able to put these into action and welcoming back fans safely when Birmingham moves into Tier 2.
2000 spectators is a start but football quickly needs larger capacities, but understands the current situation and that we have to start somewhere.
Late last week, the Club in partnership with Dhillon’s Brewery launched the latest Coventry City beer. The latest offering is a vanilla stout, with the can bearing the design of the world-famous Brown shirt of the late 70s and early 80s, and is appropriately named Stout Of The Vanilla. The Club first went into partnership with Dhillon’s Brewery earlier this year and the launch of the first beer had been planned for what became the first week of lockdown.
We still however launched the beers, which have become very popular with supporters despite the challenges of lockdown and we intend to further develop our relationship with Dhillon’s in the next year.
The partnership with Dhillon’s is further proof that we can generate revenues for the Football Club away from matchday income and it is important that we remain innovative in our thinking of ways to further develop Club revenues outside of what the traditional methods.
This season, while we haven’t been able to welcome fans into stadiums, iFollow has allowed supporters the opportunity to watch league games live and has been a great way for supporters to follow the games, the team and support the Club financially, which has been another important source of revenue during this period. We are performing well on iFollow compared to other teams in the league, and I would encourage fans to continue watch games in this way, safe in the knowledge that all revenue from buying your Match Pass goes directly to your Club.
As these are my final notes before Christmas, I would like to take this opportunity to wish all Coventry City fans and their families a very Merry Christmas.
Dave