In January Swansea City Supporters’ Trust were delighted to publish our full report on the Matchday Experience at Swansea City, which we kicked-off in October 2023. All our four previous updates which included a link to the full survey report are available to access on our Trust website HERE
The project was established to better understand the experience of supporters in and around the stadium on matchdays and identify positive changes that could improve this. Almost 1000 supporters responded to our survey with the results providing a clear and strong case for changes to be made.
We promised to take the next steps with the support of the club to form a joint working group that will own these findings and others that are identified.
We are pleased to advise this group made up of a combination of club, Trust and supporter representatives are now fully up and running and they held their fourth meeting at the Swansea.com stadium and via Teams on Thursday 10th October 2024.
This meeting gave everyone an opportunity to review progress to date and revisit some of the key recommendations arising from the fans survey. Some changes to the working group were also confirmed including it being renamed the Matchday Eperience Working Group – MEWG -and the full group is now made up as follows:
Paul Meller (PM) – Swans Trust
Adam Lewis (AL) – Swans Trust
Dave Dalton (DD) – Swans Trust
Chris Golledge (CG) – Swans Trust
Tony Sharpe (TS) – Swans Trust
Katie Doyle (KD) – Swansea City
Hayley Ford (HF) – Swansea City
Kev Johns (KJ) – Swansea City
Lee Joseph (LJ)
Paul Joseph (PJ)
Ian Davies (ID)
Thomas Hughes (TH)
Craig Fulford-Astley (CFA)
Jamie Ranford (JR)
PM chaired the meeting and thanked everyone for making time in attending.
Our guest for this meeting was Club Principal Safety Officer Jonathan Jones (JJ)
Apologies were received for this meeting from:
Chris Golledge
Adam Lewis
Kev Johns
Paul Joseph
Craig Fulford-Astley
Thomas Hughes
Another constructive meeting can be summarised as follows:
Group Membership
Consideration to be given to increasing diversity of fan representation on the group. KD/HF to propose potential candidates.
Matters arising from MEWG meeting of 10th July 2024
- White wall proposal – HF researching arrangements at other clubs across the UK who have been successful in this area and will feedback at next meeting.
- Attracting local catering/vendors to stadium for games is proving difficult as there is only a short sales window
- New food menu taster session successfully held and new food now available on concourses on match days
- Match day drummer now within safe standing area
- Investment in stadium infrastructure noted and welcomed including: Mel Nurse bar, safe standing area, painting of stand roof beams and new floodlighting
- Publicity of supporter survey around stadium following each home game this season is to be reviewed by HF and details to be circulated to group as many were unaware of its existence. Consists of a few short questions based on EFL guidance. Suggestion made that SMS might be an alternative to use of QR code as it has a better response rate and to be backed up by more comms.
- Whilst logistically difficult to accommodate a suggested double header men’s and women’s matches, over the past weekend the men’s match v Stoke on Saturday was followed by the women’s v Cardiff on Sunday (over 2200 in attendance) with the fan zone in place for both games, followed by the U21s on the Monday.
- Matters not discussed, to be considered at a later date:
- Fan-cam on big screens
- Stadium Wi-Fi
- Transport link
Proposed MEWG Terms of Reference
Initial draft ToR has been drawn up by the Trust to be informed by discussion amongst group members about continuing role and function of the group.
From a club perspective it was important to understand what group members want to achieve by being part of the group in order to work towards the success of a common goal. The club believes that the matchday working group can provide a good sounding board for ideas related to matchday experience, but would like to have clear goals/objectives against which to measure success. The club welcomes constructive criticism.
From a Trust perspective it should be a forum for addressing MDE experience concerns raised by supporters, but in a structured way, evidentially based through surveys/information gathered.
Generate ideas and changes which spark positive comments on social media. Some members of the group do push back but it is a thankless task. All supportive of continuing with the group which they now appreciate is not a task and finish exercise but an ongoing commitment which hadn’t been fully appreciated at the outset.
Need to look at other ways of capturing wider supporter experiences rather than react to individual anecdotes. Considered football being played this season was much better and need to focus on encouraging families back, especially in the South Stand.
Draft is currently being reviewed by club and Trust and will be soon be circulated to full working group for comment.
Stewarding
Matchday stewarding had been raised at a previous meeting as concerns had been raised over inconsistency of stewarding both in terms of searches on entering the ground and also in terms of controlling crowd behaviour – NW corner cited as an example.
Swansea City Principal Safety Officer Jonathan Jones (JJ) had been invited along as our guest for this meeting and explained the background to stewarding recruitment and matchday logistics. A minimum number of stewards have to be on site every match – difficult when matches on three successive days as happened in early October. Prefer not to use agency staff as they less familiar with the stadium which can give rise to inconsistent approaches. Club are actively looking to increase number on books and have been holding interviews in October. Previous two recruitment drives have proven very positive with more professional staff taken on e.g. fire fighters and people from professional backgrounds.
Positions are advertised on club website and social media, forms completed online and sieved. Club have previously held steward recruitment open days, but this offers no control over numbers or time when attending. Instead, those who are shortlisted are invited in for interview and currently there is a good level of interest. Requirement to achieve NVQ within a year and training days with actual scenarios are laid on by the club to assist with the process rather than rely on individuals to complete the training modules by themselves.
Typically, each stand will have a steward supervisor with 3 team leaders plus an appropriate number of stand stewards. There are also fire stewards and turnstile operators – the latter have now been moved outside to assist those in the queues rather than at the turnstile or inside as this speeds up entry. This system is working well (after early games when fans were turning up with old season tickets, etc) and the turnstile operators go inside the stadium to act as stewards once entry is over. Stewards are also rotated around the stands and trained in customer service. It was noted that there is some overlap with the ‘Here to Help’ volunteer, but recognition that anyone acting in such a role need to know the answers to the questions they are likely to be asked.
Only the supervisors and team leaders have a walkie-talkie and a body cam. Club would like to provide all stewards with a body cam but they cost upwards of a few hundred pounds each. Cams are switched on by the stewards to record certain fan situations with an explanation given why. When issues are seen to be developing on the stadium cameras someone with a body cam will always be sent in. All recordings are uploaded at the end of each game and kept for 30 days.
Stewards mainly act on issues alerted to by cameras, in response to complaints (no two games are the same), and against attempted migration around the stands which is a real issue. Anyone found to be sitting in the wrong seat will be asked to move back to where their ticket is for regardless of availability of other seats.
It is a condition of a ticket being purchased that there may be a search upon entry to the stadium. Certain stands have search requirements depending on the match, and it can be different in different areas of the stadium. Sometimes the searches are intelligence led, and sometimes random.
This has seen an increase in arrests for possession of pyros in the away stand. All stewards are suitably trained how to search anyone attending a game.
Supporters felt that it could be made clearer around the stadium that searches will be in place. Club to consider further.
The group acknowledged how important it was for staff to be properly trained, and encourage a values and behaviour framework to be adopted.
Club are seeking to get more buy in locally and recently had 240 stewards for a training day.
The safe standing area is working well. Elsewhere sitting down is what should be policed, but recognise a nigh on impossible task at certain times and moments during matches.
Ticketing
South (family) stand was fuller for the Stoke game as the club had relaunched its grass roots programme with 5 junior teams invited with children paying £1 accompanied by 4 free adults. Kids for a quid will be run for Millwall match plus one more match before Christmas. Important not to devalue season tickets but also trying to make it more affordable – club considering family tickets. Club are then tracking the purchasers with a view to encourage them via email to become a season ticket holder. Same approach being followed up with junior leagues and local schools.
Grass roots programme applies to any community clubs that mostly work with kids; it’s not limited to football clubs. Club are also directly engaging with junior clubs, schools and leagues throughout West Wales.
Pre-match activities in the family stand have also changed – including popular penalty shootout – to encourage earlier attendance at matches.
Suggestion from the group that the club does more to engage with the 25k students in Swansea. Currently looking at incentives for Gower College students and student tickets are available but process has been changed to ensure those applying are genuinely students.
Stadium
Display of flags from nations of club players in South Stand was proposed as well as covering up empty seats. However, there is not a large enough empty area without relocating long standing season ticket holders.
In any event it could only be a temporary measure for low attendance matches – may be scope in segregated area to NE corner, however we are now past the point of it being a welcome feature for new players.
Flag waving by Mr Flag’s crew continues to thrive and flag engagement options with the Flag Crew to be kept under review.
Upcoming Events & Fixtures
Another fan zone is planned before Christmas. The fan zone for Stoke City was moved inside for the women’s game on Sunday under the Family stand and it worked well with most already in the zone an hour before the match.
Club are trialling lining fan parks up with significant matchday celebrations (academy celebration in October, and upcoming Christmas celebration) this season.
AOB
- Agreed that group is to meet every 2 months going forward – date to be confirmed for early Dec.
- Comments on WhatsApp group appreciated but need to follow up with detail and proposal by email to supporters@swanstrust.co.uk
- Player warmups blocking views of fans – could they vary warm up location? (Club have since advised this is currently not possible).
If anyone would like to consider getting involved or submit any questions for the MEWG in advance of the next meeting scheduled for the first week in December please send us an email to supporters@swanstrust.co.uk ideally by no later than Sunday 1st December.
And don’t forget that that Trust are in regular contact with all departments within the Club as well as holding various meetings with senior managers where we routinely raise issues we receive or are aware of.
If anyone would like us to raise anything affecting them please don’t hesitate to let us know by emailing us at supporters@swanstrust.co.uk
We will then discuss it with the Club as appropriate.
Swansea City Supporters’ Trust
25th November 2024
