Hi All.
Thanks for the comprehensive feedback on yesterday. Some excellent posts with points I will take away. I am unable to comment too much on the disorder at the end of the game as an investigation is already underway.
Searching - I’m sure everyone is aware that the UK terror threat has recently been heightened to amber. While there is no specific threat to Argyle we have also reviewed our own procedures and searching is naturally part of those. I do absolutely agree that it can be extremely frustrating and there’s some work for us to do in speeding things up. Ultimately our safety officer has responsibility for the supporters and I will review with him this week and look to implement some changes that will speed this process up. We are extremely disappointed a flare got into the away end and will review CCTV to see how this happened.
Queuing - Queues were generally well controlled in the Mayflower and Devonport end, wait times were less than 5 minutes on average. We did however not get organised quickly enough on the Lyndhurst side and will deploy additional resource for future matches from the start to ensure this improved. As another poster has mentioned, the Devonport is well equipped with ample turnstiles, way above capacity limits. The Lyndhurst ideally needs more access points, and a project is being looked at however not something we can address during the season. We are also seeing a larger number of supporters bringing bags that have to be searched and with the colder weather additional layers of clothing. We will be looking into transparent bags for supporters who need to bring one however ask that you do not bring a bag unless absolutely necessary. We will find a new home for the bins!
We also understand that in order to get supporters to arrive early the facilities have to be available. Last week we installed Sky back onto the concourse TV’s to show the early kick off, we’ve put live music in the Mayflower fan zone and put a discount of 25% off all products to the concessions for 45 minutes after turnstiles open. We will continue to implement anything (better/more toilets, more concessions, shelving etc) we feel will attract supporters early and in time improve the content in the stadium via the big screen.
Catering - understand the frustrations with the internal catering. We are compromised on the concourses due to width and flow. This ultimately means we are limited to measures we can put in for queuing. This ends up being driven by people rather than barriers etc because we have to maintain flow of people and space. That said, it can absolutely be better and should be. To achieve that we have to be innovative and utilise all space. We are discussing this with the brewery for the inside and also working on how we can improve outside. Alongside this we are reviewing the offer.
With all of the above every week we plan resource for managing queues at H/T however we are increasingly having to draw on that resource to deal with issues under the Devonport End and yesterday with disorder. While stewarding can always be improved and the club will no doubt take learnings from yesterday, I emphasise that we need supporters to abide by ground regulations and be respectful of others and what we are trying to do. Ultimately we now require more resource which has a knock on impact to costs for the club.
I always to try to be as transparent as possible and this regular thread has given us valuable feedback on improvements over the last few games. Please do feel free to email me (
Christian.kent@pafc.co.uk) and I’ll always feedback the comments across the wider team.
Thanks again, Christian