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The Albion deputy chairman and CEO takes a look at recent events both on and off the pitch.

Paul Barber

2022-10-30T05:00:00Z

It’s good to be kicking off at 3pm on a Saturday at the Amex for the first time since Leeds United’s visit here at the end of August.

Measured by points alone, Roberto De Zerbi, his staff and our players are, I know, frustrated by the outcome of our last five matches. But we all know, as with our efforts at Manchester City and at home to Nottingham Forest a few days earlier, our underlying performances have been very good and the points return should be higher. Nevertheless, we go into today’s game in the top ten and three points off seventh place with a game in hand, albeit in an increasingly congested group of clubs chasing a European spot.

The quality of Albion's performance at Man City drew praise.

After today’s match, we face just two more Premier League fixtures – away at Wolverhampton Wanderers and home to another West Midlands-based club, Aston Villa, with a Carabao Cup match at Arsenal in between – before we break for the World Cup in Qatar, a very unusual and challenging 43-day mid-season hiatus for club football in our country.

Every club will be managing this period slightly differently: firstly, because it’s a highly unusual time, there’s no real precedent or script to follow; and, secondly, because every club will have different numbers of players away at the World Cup. Like all clubs, those not on World Cup duty will be able to take a short break and, like most clubs, our players will then regroup with a warm-weather training camp to prepare for the second half of the season.

It’s fair to say that like most people in football, certainly in this country, we would prefer not to break for six weeks in the middle of the season. The international calendar already truncates the domestic season just as it gains momentum, and it remains to be seen what impact inserting the world’s biggest football tournament into the middle of our domestic programme has on the players. As much as most of us love the World Cup, playing it in the middle of our season certainly doesn’t feel right.

The break does, however, allow us to commence some important works in the stadium: first, the initial construction phase for our new tunnel club, a new experiential hospitality experience that will take fans to the very heart of our matchday football operations in the tunnel area, with seats behind our dugouts; secondly, to prepare for upgrades and improvements to our club branding and signage around the stadium; and thirdly, to prepare for works to introduce new outdoor food, drink and entertainment facilities at the Amex.

Our aim is to use the enforced and extended winter break to ensure we can minimise, or ideally eliminate as far as possible, any inconvenience or disruption to fans while these various preparatory works to improve our stadium facilities and environment are carried out.

We anticipate that the remainder of the various works we are commencing will be carried out in a co-ordinated and phased process over the following 12 and 18 months, subject to budget.

Away from the Amex, our ticket checks at Manchester City once again highlighted an interesting pattern of behaviour from some. Of the tickets held back for collection, 37% remained uncollected – like Brentford, this is a much higher ratio of no-shows than we would normally ever expect, even for games where distance and transport is an issue. Random ticket checks also led to several people being unable to match ID to the name on the ticket, and one fan who decided to ‘beat’ the system by removing the original name and writing in his own.

The numbers unfortunately confirm the view of our supporter services and security staff that the practice of a small (but not insignificant) minority of fans buying tickets to matches which they have no intention of attending when the supply of tickets is low is also very much in evidence when the loyalty point yield is high.

In both cases, the tickets are bought with the sole intention of passing or selling them on to people without enough loyalty points while protecting their own loyalty point totals.

Encouragingly, as this type of abuse of the loyalty point system becomes more widely known and better understood, the increasing numbers of emails and letters from Albion fans in support of the checks, coupled with a lower level of abuse directed at staff simply doing their jobs to support our travelling fans, is in stark contrast to the already decreasing levels of ejections and arrests at these matches.

As such, and while we must apologise again to the very small number of fans we may inconvenience from time to time, our ticket checks at away matches will continue. We will also continue to be entirely transparent with the results of our checks – both through these programme notes and also with the Fan Advisory Board – to highlight an issue which has damaged the club’s reputation in some quarters and deprived some fans with lower loyalty points from attending away matches they wish to see.

As you would have read elsewhere, today is our designated Rainbow Laces game, in conjunction with Stonewall and the Premier League. We are once again delighted to be showing our support for the campaign – and it’s essential we make the game welcome to everyone, regardless of their gender, sexuality or ethnicity.

At our football club, we have forged strong links with our local LGBTQ+ community over a number of years, and we have recently set up a number of equality networks at the club, including an LGBTQ+ staff network, while we are the headline sponsor of Pride each year in the city.

We are also delighted to launch our latest initiative, Albion Allies, this week, where our fans are being asked to make a pledge to support equality, diversity and inclusion within our community.

We want everyone to feel welcome, regardless of background, identity or circumstance, but sometimes people need our help and support when confronted by discrimination – and, sadly, this can be on a matchday. If you do hear or witness anything of a discriminatory nature, please report it to the nearest steward immediately. Rest assured, we will act.

As ever, thank you for your support.