REDaction meet with Ivan Gazidis
An account of a get together with Arsenal’s CEO from Monday this week
By REDaction
This was our second meeting with Ivan since he took over the Chief Executive’s role and the plan is to hold them on a quarterly basis from now on. Ivan will also be meeting with other Supporters groups like AISA and the Arsenal Supporters’ Trust on a regular basis as well. He will also be attending the regular Fans’ Forums.
The eight ‘cores’ around the stadium are to be decorated in this way
These meetings are a massive opportunity for us to put forward ideas etc that we have received over the past few months, so if you do have ideas let us know. You can rest assured we will take them to the club if they are workable and as we are going straight to the top, so to speak, we will have answers very quickly as well. Our feeling with Ivan Gazidis is that he very honest and very pro-supporters. He has told us that he will not always say ‘yes’ to plans but if he has to say ‘no’ he will at least explain the reasons why. We started the meeting discussing the ‘Arsenalisation’ of the Stadium. I suppose not strictly an ‘atmosphere’ issue but nevertheless something that our members have constantly e-mailed us about. The main beef has been that the stadium is very soulless and that it did not feel like ‘home’. As some of you may know a couple of REDaction’s finest including my good self have been active on the Fans’ Forum over the last couple of seasons and we have pushed very hard on this topic throughout those meetings. There was not a lot of headway for a considerable time but once Ivan was in place the situation changed rapidly. In simple terms Ivan agreed with us about the stadium and several plans have been put into operation and there will be more over the coming months. Firstly the lower concourses are going to be decorated in a variety of ways including murals of Arsenal’s greatest moments. A replica of the Arsenal underground station mural from the last season at Highbury will also go up, plus lots of other stuff that I believe will add to most people’s enjoyment of the ground. I am hoping to have some ‘exclusive’ images from these changes and they will posted for you to see asap. These will mostly be in place by the time of the Pompey match and will be completed by Wigan. Some of you will have seen the pictures of how the external cores are going to be decorated. 32 of Arsenals greatest players will adorn the walls and again these will be place latest by the Wigan game. There is also going to be a ‘shrine’ over the Armoury. This will be a massive image of Highbury with a ‘squad photo’ of every single player who played for Arsenal during the Highbury years on it. A massive task to collate all the names and pictures but it has been done. In the pipeline to happen probably towards the end of this year is that the coloured quadrants will be dropped in favour of the North, South, West and East stands, so another major bugbear for some supporters will be going. Ivan agrees that the Clock is in the wrong place and that it should be put in its rightful place inside the ground at the south (or should I say Clock!) End! The club have found that such a move can take place and did try and get it resolved during the close season. Unfortunately because of the short amount of time for the preparation of this season’s pitch and because the move will entail scaffolding etc being put on the pitch it could not be done at that time. However the aim is to carry the move out in the summer next year. Of course if we continue to make sure that Ivan knows, as supporters, how strongly we feel about this issue, then we can make sure it stays high on his agenda. I am sure you will agree all this is pretty positive, and a big shout must go out to everyone who worked hard to get these things through. Whether it was through an organisation like us or indeed our friends at AISA or through the numerous people that wrote in individually to back the ideas, you know who you are so give yourselves a big pat on the back. Moving on to one of the ‘complaints’ we have had about REDaction is that we don’t give enough notice of our plans to anyone. Therefore we have started to work on a bit more of a timetable and this combined with us becoming a bit more ‘media friendly’ through our messageboard and website etc we hope will do the trick. On this point, the club have said that they will give us more opportunities to get ideas over through their various media outlets as well. Plans so far include: Pompey home – although not strictly our idea we have been asked by the club to try and find as many volunteers as possible to hand out 57,000 scarves prior to the match. I’m sure there will be some gripes about this and in fact I‘ve seen a few already being voiced by what appears to be the usual doom and gloom merchants on various websites. All I would say is that at least the club are trying to do something, let’s hope people bring them back for future games rather than just sell them on eBay this time! Fulham away – A Boat Trip again. Oh dear… much drink will be consumed no doubt West Ham away – As you know the charity of the year is Great Ormond Street and we will be organising a sponsored ‘bed push’ from the Grove to Upton Park. Anyone who wants to get involved just get in touch, it should be a craic and yes we are trying to sort out a few nurses to come along and be pushed! Spurs home – The general feeling is that the atmosphere tends to need no tampering with on this occasion, but we do feel that they should be ‘welcomed’ with the respect they deserve. It has been commented that a not so subtle reminder of the fact that it is nearly 50 years since they last won the league might go down well. Of course again your ideas/comments on this match are more than welcome. FA Cup 3rd Round Day – It will be the 80th anniversary of Arsenal’s first meaningful trophy this FA Cup campaign. We feel this would be the perfect opportunity to remind the club of how the supporters feel about the FA Cup. It might not be the club’s main priority these days but as fans we generally feel it should be given more importance. Ideas include maybe having a giant banner made with the squad from 1930 on it with something along the lines of ‘Spirit of 1930’ on it (I’m sure someone can come up with a better legend than that but you get my drift). Maybe inviting relatives of the players involved could be organised. There has also been talk of dressing in a 1930’s style for that day, obviously no sombreros involved. All sorts of ideas but again let us have your thoughts. These are some examples and the club liked them all, and turned a deaf ear about the Spurs game :o) They suggested that maybe similar to the 1930 idea that there could be other anniversaries linked to match days this season and whether it would be good to do some other themes based around them. Again we thought this could work so again the plea goes out that if you feel a specific event from Arsenal’s history should be marked why not let us know and we can take a look at it. So come on and get those brains thinking! Another idea that has been put forward is to encourage the second (unofficial) REDsection at the Clock End of the ground is by moving some REDaction people down there for the odd game. We are going to target either the Blackburn or Birmingham games for this. The club has agreed to approach the ticket office with the idea so if you are up for it then let us know and we can see if we can pull it off and join up with all the boys and girls in the ‘other’ corner. One idea recently voiced was to have a similar system as the likes of Barcelona etc for the unveiling of banners. The lower tier at the Grove is very shallow so any flags tend not to show up too well, so the idea would be to have banners on a roller system that would pull down from the front of the club level to provide a steeper angle. The club are going to investigate the feasibility of this and come back to us. They are also going to look at an even bigger giant flag - maybe in a seethrough material - so that we can overcome the ion of people becoming claustrophobic underneath giant flags (that comment is not a wind up by the way). We are also going to liaise with supporters’ clubs over the next few weeks about the potential for them to bring in their banners to the ground on matchday, i.e. what size will fit over the front of the stands etc. One other major beef in recent times has been the club colours in the kits. Ivan agreed that red with white sleeves is how our home kit should and always will be. However he did say that as far as the away kit is concerned then yellow and blue is not sacrosanct. His view is that we have to face commercial realities and the fact is that last year’s yellow kit sold poorly and that the new blue kit is outselling it so far. He did concede that the lack of sales for the yellow might have had something to do with the recession, but suffice to say we will not always have a yellow away kit. ‘The Wonder of You’ also causes our e-mail inbox to bulge on a regular basis. Ivan has just appointed a new chief commercial officer and it will be his job amongst many others no doubt to make a final decision on the Elvis tune. Although our impression is that it will definitely be axed at some stage. Ivan suggested that we have a meeting with the new guy once he has his feet under the table and at that we should also push for better use of the big screens for things like the old montage we created for Highbury. Again any ideas let us know and we will take them forward. Drinking on the Terraces. My own personal view is that if they can do it at rugby and cricket why should football fans be treated as second class citizens. Ivan did express some surprise at this as he felt that if the law was changed then many would to being constantly disturbed by people popping out for another beer. Please give us your thoughts on this matter a swell. If there is a strong enough feeling on it then the next stage will be probably to get in touch with the Football Supporters’ Federation and see if we can start a bit of a national campaign to get the law changed. We did make representations with regard to the potential for people to spread the cost of season tickets, with the club offering some sort of payment terms. Ivan did not think this was workable as he did not want the club to be in the position of chasing its own supporters for monies owed. Finally we spoke about the old North Bank banners and the potential for putting similar banners up on the wall by the pitch at the North End. The club are just going to check to see if any of the advertisers might to there being another message behind their advert before agreeing to this but in principle they thought the idea was a sound one. I think that was about it, a very positive meeting in my opinion. It’s over to you guys now for ideas etc, we have the access to put ideas forward and the club largely trust us and indeed encourage us, so come on, get involved and let’s work together. I have posted this on igooner but in the spirit of being open to all if anyone wants to put it on other boards etc please feel free to do so. Thanks once again to all who have contributed to getting things done, and those that e-mail in ideas etc. Victory Through Harmony REDaction REDaction is an open forum of Arsenal supporters, whose aim is to improve the atmosphere at Arsenal matches, and to help support our team as best we can. We can be found in The Rocket, 166-220 Holloway Road, before and after weekend home games, where we also have a range of attractions (including cheap beer!) for all Arsenal fans. We rely on ideas and input from all Arsenal fans, and all comments and suggestions are always welcome. To join our mailing list, send a blank email to redaction-gooners-subscribe@yahoogroups.co.uk - then send a blank reply to the message you get back.
GOT A COMMENT OR OPINION ON THIS ARTICLE? DISCUSS IT FURTHER HERE
Posted 12th Aug 2009
|
.jpg)
