The summer recess means holidays in the sun, warm beer and the sound of leather on willow, but for the hard-grafting West Ham fan reps of the club’s Fan Advisory Board (FAB), it has been a busy period. Apart from attending the Football Supporters’ Association AGM and welcoming the final passing of the new football regulator (it received Royal Assent in late July), fan reps have worked non-stop on sometimes worrying issues.
Damning Fan Survey: The London Stadium Verdict
The FAB organised a survey of fans about matchday experience. It attracted nearly 8,000 responses – far larger than anything the club has managed in the past. The results were no surprise to long-suffering fans but made for dispiriting reading for a club that insists moving to the London Stadium was the best decision ever taken. The matchday atmosphere was slated. Only 5% rated it as “Good” or “Very Good”. More than 70% rated it as “Poor” or “Very Poor”. A staggering 94% said it was worse than the Boleyn Ground and 81% said it was below average or one of the worst in the Premier League. The main reasons given were the distance of supporters from pitch (84.7%), too many non-regular/tourist fans (72%), lack of identity/tradition at the stadium (61.5%), the lack of a designated singing section (40.2%) and restrictions on standing/singing (36.8%). Some 72% have considered stopping attendance due to poor atmosphere or experience.
FAB Proposals to Improve Matchday Experience
The FAB has put ideas to the club to start to turn this around, including a dedicated singing area with Tifos and safe standing (the club is the only stumbling block to this) and a separate area for neutral fans and tourists. The FAB also asked for a dedicated family area, which was supported by 77% of respondents. Fans also demanded better stewarding and a change to the wall in the Sir Trevor Brooking Stand, if it cannot be removed completely. Practical steps to make seat relocation easier for those fans wanting to congregate in a recognised “home end” was a demand, as well as structural changes to the stadium to improve acoustics. Andy Payne, the supporter co-chair of the FAB, said: ‘The supporter-led survey was the biggest since we moved and was pretty damning about the matchday experience. It looks like we are stuck with the stadium, so now we have to use the evidence to improve it.’
Pushing for the Women’s Team at London Stadium
One result from the survey was a separate workstream. Some 57% supported the club hosting at least one women’s team match a year. More than 30% said they’d likely attend. The FAB wrote to the London Mayor asking for him to intervene to make that happen. Payne told Blowing Bubbles: ‘If the women’s team is to progress, it really must be allowed to play in the stadium.’
Ticketing Battles and Data Privacy Row
As the season drew closer, fan reps reacted with horror to some of the club’s actions. When ticket prices were announced for the first home game of the season against Chelsea, the promised and agreed return of concessions were missing. Payne is diplomatic in public but behind the scenes fan anger was relayed back to the club. ‘We noticed that for general admission tickets, the concessions had not been restored in their entirety to what has been in place for season 2023/24 and we pushed for that to happen,’ says Payne. The club also pushed to widen the use of digital ticketing. West Ham fan groups had been pivotal in an FSA group that agreed with the Premier League to continue to allow physical tickets for those who struggle with digital tickets. Payne explains: ‘We led the initiative, supported by all 20 Premier League FABs and many disabled supporter boards, to get clarity from the Premier League that no supporter would be excluded when digital ticketing becomes the norm from season 2026/27. This will reassure all those who are not able to access their matchday tickets via digital devices that they will not be left behind.’ The FAB also won some season ticket holders extra cash from the tickets they had sold on the ticket exchange last season. The club had not paid as much as its contract and T&Cs guaranteed. Payne says: ‘We alerted the club of some discrepancies for some season ticket holders and provided the evidence to support those claims. It was down to the FAB that those supporters affected were reimbursed.’ Just as BB was going to press, the club told fan groups it was insisting on ID verification for all concession tickets and was outsourcing the data collection to a private company that advertises how it then monetises any data it receives. All of this was simply presented to the FAB, with zero consultation. To say fan groups were outraged, and objected in the strongest terms, would be an understatement. That came just as a West Ham employee sent 500 private email addresses in an open email. Fan groups had demanded an urgent meeting with the club. The new regulator had just asked to speak to the FAB – and to WHUST separately – about how consultation was going. WHUST has agreed to meet jointly with Hammers United reps. Payne says: ‘The new regulator is the best news for all supporters. At last, owners will have regulatory oversight. And let’s face it, plenty of them need it.’
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