Are City starting to listen to disenfranchised supporters, looking to rescue attendances because season ticket take-up is dwindling or are they drumming up more support ready for the long awaited North stand expansion?
I had a call from City supporter services, about an hour ago. I nice fella / good listener, called Sam, wanted to know if I planned to take up a season ticket this year after I had been forced by the club to cancel my last one, about 4 games into last season.
I explained the circumstances, of my cancelling, to Sam. City had sent me an email to introduce a new a rule that prevented supporters taking a bag bigger than an 'A4 sheet of paper', as they described it, into the ground.
That was a problem to me as I'd always attended on my bike, so I had cycling clothing (waterproofs, high viz, helmet, gloves etc.) and while they wouldn't go into an A4 sized bag, they did fit in a bag that would go under my seat, so as not to interfere with the walkways.
I also took my flask and my butties in that bag so I called City supporter services and explained why I needed a bag of about the size that I'd always taken.
Their first response was to say that I wasn't allowed to take my butties or flask into the ground. I made the point that security had always checked my bag and that they'd never had an issue with it's contents (other than to ask me what was on my sandwiches). They countered that by telling me that they'd deal with the security, specifically on the gate I used, to make sure that they didn't allow me to take butties or a flask ever again.
They told me verbally that it was because they had an agreement, with the food franchises, to make sure that supporters didn't have their own food and drink and so that they'd be forced to buy from the franchises - though they wouldn't put that in writing.
I pointed out that me not taking food or drink wouldn't increase franchise sales at all because I'm a bloke who's at an age that demands he goes for a piss a halftime - and halftime isn't long enough to queue for / use the toilets and then queue to buy food and drink before the 2nd half kicks off. But they wouldn't take account of what is effectively an age related medical condition that affects most men over 55 . . . as many of you will find out.
I'd approached supporter services as a long term supporter looking for help in dealing with a cruel rule change and the heartless sods had no mercy whatsoever.
It took a long and drawn out process of correspondence and I even went to the ground to meet the head of supporter services and the head of security for the South stand - he was a right idiot, he kept going on about his opinion that cyclists are no different than other supporters so didn't have any different bag size needs.
The ultimately told me that I could store a bag with them if I was willing to pay for a corporate ticket (they said that they can take suitcases as they might be on the way to the airport) and that their stance was that if I couldn't attend due to a rule change, that had only just been drawn to my attention, then that was tough luck and not their problem - they would not refund my season card if they made it so that I couldn't attend.
I threatened them with the ombudsman and they folded and refunded my seasoncard - after attending games (with flask and butties) from the age of 12 in 1972, I was finally stopped from attending games after 46 solid years and at the age of 58. . . by the club I'd happily poured my wages into all my life.
Ok, that was a long drawn out 'sounding sorry for myself' narrative, but it's true and I wondered if other supporters have had similar issues / if other supporters have received calls from Sam and his colleagues, trying to draw back in previously lost support because they've lost too many / if this heralds a new dawn where supporter services are going to actually start being a service for supporters rather than a service design to force supporters to buy from the franchises or if the initiative is about building up a head of steam prior to an expansion?
