Supporting a football club should be easy. You watch football on a match day and then spend the rest of the week in the build up to the following game going about your normal business. But here it isn’t. That’s because for the remaining 6 days of the week we analyse, question, pontificate and generally continuing to be absorbed by and caught up in the maelstrom that is Newcastle United Football Club.

Every word draws you in.  Every decision seems to affect you. On match day you wake up tense; you head to the ground gripped by a mix of hope and apprehension. You kick and head every ball. A win brings out emotions that you would normally share only with an immediate family member (usually your husband or wife); defeat can deflate you to a point of despair.

It is little wonder therefore that events off the pitch impact upon supporters as much as those on the pitch. They are intrinsically linked. Why? Because as supporters we care that’s why. And that’s why, when events spiral in a manner that makes no sense, supporters see the need to call for change.  For many, that point was reached this summer and they believe the time for that change is now.

Those calling for change are normal rank and file supporters. Decent, hard working, honest people. Supporters taking action born out of frustration for what has gone on in the past and as their poster says, they’re marching for ambition. 

This is why we support #Time4Change.  

 
OPEN MEETING, NEWCASTLE LABOUR CLUB 

INTRODUCTION AND WELCOME
Steve Hastie gave a brief introduction, outlining the agenda which all attendees received copies of, before introducing Newcastle United’s Supporter Liaison Officer, Lee Marshall.  Lee began by talking about some of the things that have been achieved by the Club working in partnership with Fans United. These include the return of the Gates to St James’ Park and Steve Harper’s 20 Years Charity Match.


FANS FORUM
Lee provided information on the Fans Forum recently announced by the club. He stated that much of the format and views have been shaped following meeting and talking to fans and fan groups. The club want to establish a robust structure for the forum so that it will stand up to scrutiny. They have worked to do this by working in consultation with the Football Supporters Federation who have provided feedback and constructive criticism to the club. They have also looked at examples from other clubs where forums are already operating.  The forum will contain 15 fans. Three of these will be held permanently by established fans groups, NUFC Fans United, Newcastle United Supporters Trust (NUST) and Newcastle United Disabled Supporters Association (NUSDA). 

The 12 remaining fan seats are open to all Newcastle United fans to apply and they will represent different segments of the clubs fans base. These will include season ticket holders in the Milburn, East, Gallowgate and Leazes stands, an Away Season Ticket Holder, A Long Distance Traveller (attending at least five home games a season), a Young Person’s representative (under 21),  an over 65s representative, a supporters club seat (for the secretary or chair of any supporters club containing a minimum of 20 members), a Black and White member (non season ticket holder), a corporate member  and an equality representative. Two board members, John Irving and Lee Charnley will also sit on the panel, along with the club’s heads of safety, security, ticketing and media. The Newcastle United Foundation and Wonga will also be represented. Lee stated that the forum will meet for the first time in September. Lee stated that the introduction of the fans forum does not signal the end of him attending Fans United meetings and that the club will continue to attend.

When questioned about how non-ST holders can be represented by the Fans Forum, Lee explained that that was why the Trust, Fans United and NUDSA have permanent seats on the Forum. We can act as funnels, gathering views and opinion from fans and non-ST holders and feed that back to the Forum.

People were concerned that the Fans Forum is just a UEFA box ticking exercise as UEFA have a directive about improving supporter engagement with Clubs and the Supporter Liaison Officer (in NUFC’s case Lee Marshall) is a UEFA mandated position. Lee accepted this, but went on to explain that although the SLO is a UEFA mandate; the Fans Forum is not. The Fans Forum has been set up to give fans a line of communication with the boardroom, and two senior directors will sit on the Fans Forum when it meets quarterly.

People were also dismayed that Mike Ashley will not be in attendance and once again the question of why he does not address the fans, talk to the fans or explain his plans and motives for the Club to the fans was raised. It was suggested from the floor that Mr Ashley writes the programme notes occasionally as this would provide him with his own unedited platform to tell fans what is happening.

Malcolm Dix, Steve Wraith and Ian Cusack all said at various points that the Forum is great progress, coming from a regime that has had such a poor relationship with the fans; and that it should be given a chance to see what it can achieve. 



YOU TUBE
Linking in with Lee’s information about the Fans Forum, Steve confirmed that Fans United will use our seat on the panel to pass on queries, comments and issued that have been raised by fans through ourselves. In addition to being able to do this via the meetings, social media, website and emails, Steve also announced that Fans United intend to create a You Tube account. This will allow fans to send video comments which will be uploaded to the Fans United website and can be viewed by other fans.


GATES
Both Lee and Steve updated the meeting on the progress of ‘the Gates’. They are currently undergoing restoration which is nearing completion. They are set to be installed on Friday August 23, the day before the first home game of the season against West Ham. There will be an installation ceremony on the day of the game itself.  


TICKETING ISSUES
Issues concerning away ticket allocations have been raised with the club previously through a number of sources including Fans United. The club has not always taken full allocations due to clubs having to reimburse the home club for unsold tickets. The club has pressed the Premier League to change this ruling and has obtained support from a number of other clubs. This has resulted in the Premier League changing the allocation rules to allow away clubs to take up the full allocation without being charged for unsold allocations, which is at present being ratified.

A number of ticketing issues from the floor were raised with Lee, in particular problems experienced as to how tickets are linked (with regards to applying for away games with friends/family members), and also the fact that though season ticket prices are frozen the compulsory membership fees are still rising year on year.

These are issues that Lee will feed back to the club on.


STEWARDING 
Questions were raised with Lee regarding the possibility of allowing fans to bring in flags, banners and surfers. It was noted that on occasions the club and or sponsors have had large scale banners and surfers in the ground, yet fans have not been allowed to bring their own on the grounds of health and safety. Lee agreed that if this is the case, it needs to be looked at. He stated that fans wishing to bring flags and banners should contact the club, to meet with the security team for advice. It was raised from the floor that fans had already done that were generally fobbed off with health and safety commonly being used as an excuse.  Lee invited any fans who would like to work with him on this issue to contact him.

After a point raised from the floor, re flares and smoke bombs, Lee explained that prior to the Man City game all away fans were not routinely searched on entering SJP. Following the flare incident at that game, NUFC changed their policy and ALL away fans are routinely searched.  Steve Hastie added that it might seem hypocritical to outsiders that we complain about away fans bringing flares into the ground when our away support routinely let off flares and smoke bombs during our Europa Cup campaign. Wendy Taylor (NUFC Head of Media) confirmed that NUFC were fined heavily for both flares and streakers by UEFA last season.

Points from Twitter included “why is the stewarding in the Strawberry Corner so aggressive and OTT?”  and “even after Man City, flares were still a problem at SJP”



SINGING SECTION
Calls for the return of a singing section have been brought up with Lee previously and the issue continues to be brought up with Fans United. Lee was asked if he had any further progress on the issue. Lee has fed this back to the club and the matter is being discussed within the club, though he does not have any specific updates or information at this time.  NUFC Fans United will continue to press the Club on this matter.  The consensus from Twitter was if the singing section is to be reinstated can it be located in The Strawberry Corner.


JOE HARVEY
Steve talked about the recent Joe Harvey tribute night.. The organisers have raised £10,000 for a plaque which will be installed at St James’ Park. NUFC Fans United extent their congratulations to the Fairs Club for their sterling work in ensuring that the Joe Harvey Memorial Plaque will be installed.


NUMBER 9 PLATFORM
A new online fanzine, The Number 9 launches in August and hopes to become a platform to promote various NUFC related angles online. The fanzine and Fans United hope to establish a regular #NUFCHour on Twitter to help in this.


ANY OTHER BUSINESS
Lee was asked if there was an update on the issue of the club providing/running its own travel club for away games. No update as yet.

It was also suggested that the club set up regular ‘Footballers Dinners’ events at St James’ to allow fans and players to engage with one another.


WENDY TAYLOR
At the end of the evening Wendy Taylor stood up and explained that although she and Lee might appear to be relatively junior members of staff, they do work at the Club and there aren’t “twenty layers of management” between themselves and Mike Ashley. She meets Mr Ashley “every few weeks” and feeds back what she hears from the fans; “he does get the message”.


The meeting took place on the fourth anniversary of Sir Bobby Robson’s death. It was suggested that in the future a regular pre-season tournament could be established involving Sir Bobby’s previous clubs. This suggestion proved to be popular with those in attendance.

The meeting ended with a minute’s applause in memory of Sir Bobby.
 
We should have included this into the minutes just make everyone aware of what was asked.  Just for reference, we received over 500 questions (many were repeats), they were compiled into the following sections and list.  These questions were passed on the NUFC on Monday and a sample were read out to start the meeting.  Further questions were asked on the night, but nothing that provided a major departure from the below. 


Joe Kinnear
  1. Why Joe Kinnear? What are his credentials?
  2. Was he the only candidate? 
  3. Aren’t you concerned about his health?
  4. Why not somebody like Chris Mort?
  5. Why the delay in announcing?
  6. Did Llambias walk or was he pushed?
  7. Doesn’t this appointment undermine Alan Pardew/ other staff?
  8. Who allowed JK on TalkSport?


General Q’s about JK
  1. How will this work? (ie who’s responsible for what - clarity of JK’s role)
  2. Who has the final say on players?
  3. How do the players feel - especially those whose names he mangled?
  4. What action did the Club take after TalkSport? 
  5. Do the Club not feel embarrassed by TalkSport?


General Mike Ashley/ Ownership
  1. Why did MA buy the Club? 
  2. Does he still “want” to own NUFC?
  3. Can you help us understand what you are trying to achieve with NUFC?
  4. What does Mike Ashley want? Why does he do things he knows anger fans?
  5. Will you ever issue a statement (from YOU) or communicate directly with fans?
  6. Would you sell?
  7. Would you consider some form of scheme to allow (partial) fan ownership?
  8. How much we now owe Ashley has he been taking the installments back?
  9. Would MA accept further (outside) investment into NUFC?


General NUFC
  1. What happened to the “five year plan”?
  2. Do you think you are following your own Mission Statement (refresh???)
  3. How can we be confident in club when direction changes more than the wind?
  4. What does the last week to to encourage stability?
  5. What progress have you made as a club?
  6. & do you actually understand how important the customer is?
  7. What was the MASSIVE commercial deal that was going to be announced at the end of the season?
  8. Would you ever consider bringing a safe standing/ singing section back?
  9. Will SJP ever be upgraded to hold more? 
  10. What’ the thinking behind “membership” also do you know how poor an offer it is?
  11. Also as a side question can they look at away games, in particular lifting the ban on non season ticket holders and also taking the full quota of tickets offered by the home clubs
  12. Have you published the revised disabled supporters’ ticketing policy yet? Who are you consulting with?


Transfer/ Team questions
  1. What is the transfer strategy? Has it changed? Are will still buy young & cheap?
  2. Why didn’t we sign players last summer to build on 5th place?
  3. Why weren't the buys/ sales sorted the week after the last game as promised?
  4. Can we get out of the Wonga deal?
  5. Do we always have to bring in money first before buying?
  6. Could the club look into fan input on how the club is ran?
  7. Is the rumour true about Aubameyang been offered shares in SD in a contract offer?
  8. How often do you practise corners and do you have any tactics
  9. with us £18mil up on transfers and the wage bill down + TV deal, why arent we spending big eg Aubameyeng
  10. And how long are we going to have to put up with the fact that the likes of Gutierrez and Tiote are constantly bigged up as being 'key players' for the team when in reality the only thing they contribute is holding us back?

Any other business
  • Pre - season tournament held at St James' Park each year. Newcastle United and 3 of Sir Bobby's former clubs all taking part. Four teams in the tournament with the opposition rotated each year so they all get a turn. Imagine the interest in this man! They could even donate the gate money to the Sir Bobby Robson Foundation
  • Why not do themed screenings of classic matches in the off-season?
  • Why not embrace the city, embrace the club and its fans - it would help build a winning team.


Sorry if we missed your question or you felt yours was significantly different to the above