Disappointing results on the pitch have been matched off the pitch with equally disappointing fan engagement from the club.
The official structure of fan engagement is the Fan Advisory Board (FAB). This now has three sub-groups covering ticketing, fan engagement and justice.
Broken Promises and Disputed Minutes
The club voluntarily entered into an agreement to establish this regime but routinely flouts the agreed terms of reference (ToR).
For example, the club flatly refuses to share the transcript of meetings, which is written into the ToR. It then tries to add into the minutes things that were never said or exclude things that were.
It also insists after the event that certain items are confidential and not to be included in the minutes. These fall outside the published confidentiality agreement, despite that having been drafted by the club’s lawyers.
The result has been that the fan members of the FAB have taken to publishing their own interpretation of the minutes on the Independent Supporters’ Committee (ISC) website. That doesn’t make for happy reading.
Ticketing Delays and Ignored Suggestions
But it’s not just the headline-grabbing issues that bother us. On ticketing for example, we regularly spot errors in the way tickets are sold or that a process that the club thinks works doesn’t. Or we will suggest improvements to make things easier. None of these are controversial or even complicated.
The club does act on some of these but others just vanish into the void. We can wait ages for a response and still not get one.
The club has cancelled ticketing sub-group meetings and, at the time of writing, has not set a new date.
Putting aside the big issues surrounding ticket pricing and the hated Club Cash, there are loads of little wins that could make things better, but the club doesn’t appear to have the fans at heart.
The matchday experience sub-group prepared a detailed document of suggestions too, and then received no response from the club for ages.
It is always down to the fan reps to chase the club for answers. We are all volunteers doing this in our spare time – the club has employees whose job this is. The delays are unacceptable.
The Fight for Fair Disciplinary Procedures
Hold-ups on the justice committee are, sadly, down to the fans. The club changed its supporter charter without consultation to remove any reference to sharing evidence when a fan is alleged to have broken the rules.
At the first (and only) meeting of this sub-group, the club explained its position; it would only share evidence if the person appealed any disciplinary action to the independent adjudicator.
The fans made clear this was unacceptable and did not follow natural justice. We at WHUST felt this was accurately represented in the minutes.
They stated: “The Club noted this feedback, clarifying that while the Club generally did not share evidence with supporters as part of this process, any banning letters did contain reference to the evidence that had been relied upon and such evidence would be shared in full with the independent adjudicator if the supporter wished to appeal. The Club did however agree to consider the evidence sharing approach ahead of the next sub-group meeting.”
The minutes also noted: “The Club also highlighted that if any evidence was to be shared, it would need to be able to protect anyone who has reported activity to the Club or police.”
WHUST felt this was reasonable and would all need to be sorted out through negotiation and agreeing procedures.
However, Hammers United were not happy with this and insisted the club agree to share evidence.
As a result, all the work done was put on hold, despite WHUST repeatedly pushing for the ISC to send the fan’s suggested disciplinary procedures – based on the ACAS code – to the club.
Even after FAB chair Andy Payne got Baroness Brady to say in person that evidence should be shared, nothing has moved on.
Tensions Escalate Over Banned Fan Incident
Fan-club relations actually got worse at one point. The Baroness got her personal underling – not a West Ham employee – to send an email to all FAB members from her non-West Ham email.
She even had the cheek to ask FAB members to keep the matter confidential, despite having got her personal PA to send the message.
In that email the Baroness alleged that one of the non-FAB board fan reps on the ticketing committee had passed his season ticket to a person banned from the ground. That was a harsh libel against hard-working and diligent fan reps.
After much nastiness, finger pointing and having to prove innocence, it transpired it wasn’t anyone from ticketing, but someone from the justice sub-group, leading to more finger pointing and allegations against innocent people.
Eventually Andy McConnell of HU confirmed to the rest of us that he had accepted a three-match ban for his ticket being used by HU boss Paul Colborne, who was banned many years ago for sticking the corner flag on the centre spot in protest at the move to the London Stadium.
The justice sub-group remains important to WHUST and we will continue to push for the ISC to re-engage with the club and bring transparency and fairness to the way the club deal with these matters.
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