Family Stand & Gully's Gang

Dear Insider,

As a supporter of many years, your response to a previous question recently asked by Return of the Rev, angered me enough to write now.

When asked about our younger supporters you dismissed his question by saying "the family stand is family friendly, and there is artwork and a sweetstall".

With respect, either you are not a parent or you have not been in the East Stand on a matchday.

The poster was correct in saying that the concourse is like a pub. As soon as we enter the turnstile, we are faced with large amount of men standing around drinking, which is very ironic given that as the poster also mentioned children are not allowed in Dick's Bar.

Yes there is some amazing artwork in the stand, but I had to go on a tour to see it. Normally, understandably fans stand in front of the artwork eating and drinking.

As for the sweetstall, you have to be joking. We all know that this was supposed to be a betting outlet which again seemed inappropiate for a family area. Now it is a sweetstall, you are ripping off parents by charging high prices for your fayre. The children pester, the adults pay.

£2 for a bottle of drink, £5 for a plastic (not even glass) jar of mini football chocolates, £1.99 for a small bar of chocolate. You have to be joking!

Yesterday's efforts with the juggler and funny linesmen was to be commended, but lets be blunt for a family day it did not amount to much.

If the club is serious about investing in its future fans, then to put it simply it needs to properly invest in its young fans, not take them for granted.

I mean this in the way that in the past when we were desperate for young blood, the kids were given sports bags, baseball caps, watches. Now that they are tied in, this year they got a pencil, stickers, notepad and a fixture list! Sum total, about 50p each if that.

If we want to keep 10,000 young fans, we need to do better, otherwise we will have to do it all over again in the future.

Maybe in hindsight you would like to revise your previous answer?

(An incensed season ticket holder in the family stand)

I would advise that you put the above in writing to the club (this level of feedback is likely to have more impact if put in writing, with name, address and fan number). I will pass this onto the relevant personal, but it does not have the same impact as following the procedure outlined in the feedback section of the club website, ensuring to include your name and fan number. As an aside, and before I read your comments above, short of dimissing the comments, I raised RotR's concerns at a Young Seagulls meeting with various club management and two directors this morning - and it's something they will consider, but equally the nature of a matchday is that all different people are coming to watch the match, with different expectations. The stadium was not designed with a specific YS area, as we felt the concourse area behind the family stand would naturally become a family area. However, the demand for pre-match beer and pies has surprised everyone (expectations were around 50 per cent, but in truth it is over 80 per cent).

With this in mind, I have put forward the suggestion of a serparate area for YSs to congregate pre-match, but currently we do not have the space inside or outside of the concourses. With regards to the matchday events, the YS team are keen to do more as we did on Sunday - but (as with the free goodies) it all comes at a cost - what you judged as not amounting to much, cost a considerable amount to stage. With over 10,000 members, it isn't cheap to send out free watches, hats, bags, (not to mention free shirts for every member on their 7th birthday). Don't forget, the club still needs to operate in a commercially viable way - particularly with the new financial aspects of the Uefa Financial Fair Play rules soon coming into affect, which would directly impact the team budget. So everything has to be balanced against this.