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Episode 394: News, Updates and the Fan Advisory Board!
91 Plays21 days ago
Southampton – Greg today is looking at the news and happenings coming out of the club, speaking Casper Jander, the Ipswich game and the most recent meeting of the club with the fan advisory board!
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Overview
00:00:13
DailySaintsPod
Hello and welcome back to the Daily Saints pod. My name is Greg and unfortunately today flying solo not joined by Zach who is uh just not feeling too good but uh hopefully he will be back and fighting fit tomorrow but it's uh It's a day where we've got lots to talk about, or I've got lots to talk about, being some some stuff happening around the club, some some bits coming out on social media, and just plenty to get to, plenty to talk about and keep the the mind flowing.
Casper Yander Transfer Speculations
00:00:53
DailySaintsPod
And, you know, let's start... with With the biggest part, I think, and seeing some stuff flying around on the socials about Casper Yander and him supposedly wanting to leave in the summer for a number of reasons.
00:01:09
DailySaintsPod
You know, he's not happy here because his girlfriend hasn't come over with him because she's got commitments, you know, over in Germany. Yeah. Doesn't think promotions particularly likely. Now, shout out to the saint staple Saint. Huge W to him for doing all of the legwork and go and find the original source of all of this stuff that's coming out.
00:01:32
DailySaintsPod
The German outlet BILD was the origin of the story and only published it in German. So he he went out of his way to translate it. And, you know, all of the things that they come out are said in that article, but none of them are directly from the mouth of
Impact of Yander's Potential Transfer
00:01:50
DailySaintsPod
Caspiander. There is speculation that amidst the interest in him from clubs in Germany, such as Hoffenheim, that he would be open and quite happy to move back to Germany for the personal reasons that he's living away from his girlfriend and away from his family. And the article speculated that...
00:02:10
DailySaintsPod
promotion to the Premier League was not looking likely at the point of publishing because we were 10 points behind. So, well it was an interesting read, interesting see it put that way.
00:02:21
DailySaintsPod
As with all of these, like, transfer of rumours and speculation, it's... It's interesting to think about the source of it, and it could well just be that newspaper trying to put two and two together and making six. Alfie suggested on Twitter, the Alfie House, that...
00:02:41
DailySaintsPod
you know either the club or the agent or the player are sort of pushing for that move, but it could be any number of things,
Humanizing Footballers
00:02:50
DailySaintsPod
to be honest. But the the number floated around in the article was a selling price of $20 million to $25 million, which is...
00:02:58
DailySaintsPod
you know, that'd be a a decent bit of profit. Obviously, we only signed him in the summer for 12, so you you wouldn't shake a stick at it. And, I mean, I believe there's a sell-on clause of about 10% rumoured to go back to to to the club he came from.
00:03:46
DailySaintsPod
It's quite an important age to be around you know those people. and Sometimes, I think we talk a lot on the show, it's hard to know see a footballer that you see play on the pitch for 90 minutes or whatever. It's hard to humanise them and understand that they are a human with emotions too and actually...
00:04:07
DailySaintsPod
at the young age of 22, moving away for your family, even to do something as amazing as play football at this level. And for, you know, for presumably for a pretty wage, it's not, you it's not guaranteed to be all, all gravy and all good times. But, you know, if that is the main reason that that this is coming out and that he wants to move away for that reason, it's hard to hold any ill will towards him for, for that.
00:04:36
DailySaintsPod
It would be a bit sad to see him go, but actually it's an area of the pitch where I would be less concerned than losing players in in sort of other areas of the field. and and To be honest, as it as we get closer to to the end of the season and we see how the running starts playing out, obviously we talked yesterday about how difficult it has the potential to be, but you know, I think the summer, regardless of the outcome of the running is going to be busy, uh, maybe in both directions. So it's going to be probably a key summer for sports Republic. I would say to, to solidify their intent with, uh, with what they're going to approach and do with the club. But, uh,
00:05:24
DailySaintsPod
But yeah, look, Katsby Yander, I've never seen not put in 100% on the pitch. And that is all you can really ask of a player. And so even if that is the case and that his feelings are that he'd like to to move on in the summer, but he carries on doing like he's done so far for the rest of the season. No hard feelings for me, fair enough. And if we turn a decent bit of profit in the way,
00:05:49
DailySaintsPod
Happy days as well, I suppose.
Game Rescheduling and Fan Reactions
00:05:51
DailySaintsPod
Right, moving on to the next thing on my list of things to talk about today. The Ipswich Clash on Good Friday has now been moved to 5.30 as a kickoff instead of the previously advertised 3pm for Sky TV, which... It's a bit bit rubbish. Not really a huge fan, but i mean it's not also not the worst move in the world. There have definitely been more egregious timetable shifts, let's put it that way.
00:06:24
DailySaintsPod
That is still subject to change as well, crazily, depending on the outcome of our game against Fulham. If we progress in the cup, there's a chance that that is the game that gets moved. So that will be interesting. A bit of a surprise to the game against Reximon.
00:06:44
DailySaintsPod
on Easter Monday didn't get picked up. That that feels like the the like crazy, real big six-pointer. Obviously, St. Ipswich is going to be a massive game and with huge sort of ramifications in that playoff and in promotion space, but But, you know, us, we're right on the tail of Wrexham. And that that game is arguably, you know, if if we manage to get to that game, carrying on the form we're in, that game could be one of the most important games of the season, which is kind of crazy to think about. But we talked about that, you know, a lot yesterday.
00:07:23
DailySaintsPod
But yeah, Ipswich picked for TV. Should be a good game of a football to watch, to be fair. Looking forward to going to St Mary's for it. I did speculate a bit about whether kicking off later on a Friday like potentially has an impact on on the players having to play again on Monday.
00:07:43
DailySaintsPod
But in all honesty, does does the gap of a couple of hours make that much of a difference? I don't know, is the answer. it's I mean, it is just another sort of point of speculation to think about with all of these things, the way that things move around for TV and and the the knock-on effect that has. But yeah, 5.30 on Good Friday.
00:08:06
DailySaintsPod
Yeah, I'd have preferred the three
Fan Engagement and Feedback Insights
00:08:08
DailySaintsPod
o'clock. That feels like the perfect time of day for football. I think one of our main like taglines on the show is if it ain't broke, don't fix it. And football's been played at three o'clock as its primary kickoff time for...
00:08:22
DailySaintsPod
hundreds of years so why why the need to change that just upsetting every single time i think uh from most people's perspective for those not able to get to some areas i suppose the plus of another game you can watch on tv which is always nice at least uh well results dependent, I suppose. But in general, I would think largely positive.
00:08:51
DailySaintsPod
And another news story in the wider football world this time, sort tangentially related to Saints. West Brom announced today that James Morrison, their interim manager that they've got in charge at the moment, is going to stay until the end of the season.
00:09:07
DailySaintsPod
With a familiar name to Saints fans, Matt Gill posed as his assistant Meaning that he will be in the dugout against Saints on on Wednesday next week.
00:09:23
DailySaintsPod
It's... Yeah. It's going to be an interesting one, I suppose. I don't know if he will be taking any stick for that from from Saints fans or not.
00:09:36
DailySaintsPod
I guess it's hard to say how that one goes down, but... Yeah, certainly just an interesting and one of the like connections in football that Zach in particular loves to find those links between teams and games that come up. And yeah,
00:09:54
DailySaintsPod
Just a nice interesting one. And my final point, and probably the longest point I'm going to talk about today, an absolutely fascinating one for me, because the Southampton Fans Advisory Board published their meeting notes from their most recent meeting with the club.
00:10:15
DailySaintsPod
which was a really interesting read. And I have never read the fan advisory board meeting notes. To be honest, did not even know they were a thing, but it popped up from the app today and immediately caught my attention. And one of the things in the meeting notes is this is never shared on social media and it'd be good if it was. So I guess there's proof that they do listen to some of the actions in those meetings, if nothing else. But yeah,
00:10:43
DailySaintsPod
I mean, yeah, it was an interesting read. There was some some waffle in there about away tickets that, I mean, it's kind of outside of the club's control because away tickets are handled by away clubs. guys like that's That's how it has always worked. and it's it's a bit sad, but the club can only do what it can do.
00:11:05
DailySaintsPod
But I read through the whole six-page document of all of the notes and just took out some key talking points to to go through about what they talked about, what was raised to the club from the fan perspective, what the club had to say, and what the club raised back to the the advisory board. They also raised some sort of interesting talking points. So I'm just going to go through that.
00:11:32
DailySaintsPod
They talked about the EFL survey that was sent out, which we previously talked about on the show, as being slightly tone deaf at the time in which they sent it out. Definitely a lot of reading into some that as, how can we get more of your money? But, you know, the sentiment towards the the people sending out at that time that they did was not great.
00:12:16
DailySaintsPod
Or I certainly would think that more than 5% of them would be willing to fill in a survey for the EFL. But yeah they seem to phrase that in a positive light. They'd had more than 1,000 responses and take good insight from those responses. Yeah.
00:12:33
DailySaintsPod
well Some talk in the notes about the timing of the survey and the sentiment and how that might have knocked some of the survey results down lower than the EFL average, but the club actively saying that doesn't mean that they should ignore the feedback. They should be looking to to work on those things regardless. The interesting like tidbits to come out of it is that 41% of attendees to games...
00:13:01
DailySaintsPod
uh go with children which I mean, that seems like a pretty high number, but actually from from my perspective of where I sit, obviously I take my kids with me and and quite a few others around us in the sort of northern zone take their kids with them. There's quite a few a kids all all about. it's It's great to see, to be fair. and My thoughts on that is it seems pretty high, but it also seems like a good thing because...
00:13:28
DailySaintsPod
you know One of the main criticisms of modern football in general, I think, especially with the sort of bigger clubs, is that... people get priced out of finding their way to grow into being a fan, but clearly that's not quite the case with Saints because 41% of people taking their kids is... I mean, to me, it's it's a good thing.
00:13:52
DailySaintsPod
I guess if you're a a fan who doesn't particularly like children and doesn't want to be surrounded by kids, maybe you have a different opinion, but... today I think it all adds to the atmosphere. It's all good stuff. It's kind of shows the, the sort of values of the club to some level. The interesting thing to come out of that, it means that the club is more directly focusing on offering family things and family offerings. And that's what they'll sort of think about going forward.
00:14:24
DailySaintsPod
I mean, which is also good, even if you fall into the previously mentioned camp of people who aren't fans of children. If they've got other stuff to do around the ground, you can avoid those bits and carry on drinking in the fan zone, right? It's happy days. Everyone's a winner.
00:14:40
DailySaintsPod
But yeah, great. nice Nice to see the next generation of Saints fans coming up. That's one thing that, to be fair, I'm always very happy with with the club. There's always plenty of stuff about for the kids.
Stadium Maintenance and Community Projects
00:14:52
DailySaintsPod
The family fan zone is excellent. The mascots are great.
00:14:56
DailySaintsPod
My kids, like I say, they've been coming with me for three years now, and they absolutely love it. It's it's a joy, and it's a joy to share that experience with them.
00:15:08
DailySaintsPod
from my perspective. There was talk about the arrival time to the stadium and that five years ago there was a push to get people to arrive earlier but not much happened.
00:15:19
DailySaintsPod
Although it was raised that now that there's the fan zones and level one and the Dell that they might see numbers of that naturally come up and if they made a push it might be more effective.
00:15:30
DailySaintsPod
attendance is down but largely due to form sentiment uh which was interesting to see like actively acknowledged in the in the notes by the club representation that the the sentiment was was one of the key factors But yeah, and then it was also raised that there were issues with Wi-Fi in the stadium and people were still having issues with the app.
00:15:58
DailySaintsPod
And, yeah, I mean, I guess fair enough. It's just, I suppose it is the sort of thing that these boards are made to feedback to the club for, right? But it's not something that I would say kind of directly impacts my relationship with the club, although the app is buggy at times when you use it.
00:16:18
DailySaintsPod
Sometimes it'll put out in the stadium. You can vote for your player of the day now on the app, and you open up the app, and it just doesn't load any of those polls or anything, Yeah, I guess it makes sense that this is the sort of forum to feed that back.
00:16:32
DailySaintsPod
But I found that interesting too. the The new COO, the new Chief Operating Officer, I don't even know if if that was something we were actively aware of or that we had sort of reported on before.
00:16:47
DailySaintsPod
As I'm sure you all well know, i pay much more attention to the football side of the club. And if we did report on him coming in, I i missed it or or didn't retain it. But it was interesting that the first thing he talked about was his focus on the St. Mary's footprint regeneration project. Now we've, we've sort of alluded to this on the show and i think we talked about it, had an episode about in the past. This is their kind of plans to develop the surrounding areas of the St. Mary's stadium and,
00:17:24
DailySaintsPod
and build up these sort of districts of entertainment and office space or or whatever they're planning on doing.
00:17:36
DailySaintsPod
It was all sort of quite vague when it was raised. He's, you know, only been at the club a few months, but that is one of his targets as we've things of these projects of these size, they require a lot of a lot of time, lot of thought, a lot of effort, a lot of planning to even sort of get out of the gates and get going. But it was interesting that that was kind of his opening gambit and his key focus is that is what his focus is on.
00:18:07
DailySaintsPod
And so I'm sure that in the next... year or so, well we'll start to hear more and more about it. And that has the potential to be very interesting and, don't maybe exciting.
00:18:18
DailySaintsPod
oh i Any development of the local area is hard to see as a bad thing for me if it means more jobs and more money and more kind of revenue coming in, then it's a good thing.
00:18:35
DailySaintsPod
So so i think, great, why not? the The area around some Aries is is in need of some TLC. So so great, more more power to them. I hope it goes well, and I'm sure that we'll be hearing plenty more about that in the future.
00:18:52
DailySaintsPod
in the future They were asking, the the board asked about if there were going to be any changes to or reviews of the concourse and sort of what happens inside it and upgrades to, you know, stands and sales points whatever. But it was pointed out by the club that actually...
00:19:14
DailySaintsPod
The concourse and stadium itself has repairs and parts of the stadium will need to be repaired or renewed before they're in a position to make any more additions, which is which is interesting. I guess that means that we we won't be seeing any kind of big changes to things like we have done over the past couple of seasons with the the new bits and the new bars and the the new fan zones, the new food joints in the stadium, because they're going to need to focus their energy on or like actual stadium maintenance, which which makes sense. and It's fine, right? It's a boring but essential part of...
00:19:56
DailySaintsPod
of it right without the stadium if the stadium falls apart we uh we're in trouble so it kind of makes sense what was interested interesting was they mentioned that the special events they hold in the summer can actually cause some issues with sort of using that time to complete maintenance works and stuff in the stadium which guess that's an interesting trade-off right they're doing i think three events at the stadium in the off season this year. think they've got take that McFly and let's rock.
00:20:27
DailySaintsPod
And yeah, I'm sure that there'll be big money draws for the club, but the trade-off being it doesn't make it as easy to, to just kind of have downtime to do that maintenance. So that's a just one of those interesting logistical things that you maybe don't think about when, when things like that happen.
00:20:47
DailySaintsPod
there was raised some issues with toilets and water temperature in the toilets which to be honest has been a problem for as long as i have been attending st mary's even as a small child so they they did club did say that the other reparations required in the in the stadium are probably more pressing than those issues which is uh kind of fair enough i suppose And yeah, the other interesting point was that they're potentially going to be introducing some kind of system, like a WhatsApp chat that you can send and report any issues with the stadium or of the facilities directly to the club for for them to address, which is, i guess, interesting. interesting
00:21:29
DailySaintsPod
And a small chat about handrails and if they were going to add any issues And I said no, because actually it would hinder people escaping. It would make the aisles not wide enough, but they're to look to be adding a filter for on the ticketing site for seats that are closer to handrails, which... which I guess is good. I mean, it's not a problem that I've i've ever thought about because i' i'm not I'm very lucky to not have to think about that kind of thing. But if that's the sort of thing you need to think about before heading to a stadium, it's good that you're going have that option.
00:22:05
DailySaintsPod
and any kind of accessibility information that is you know so freely available and there's no detriment to providing is is fantastic, right? Because yeah know there's a lot of stairs. If you're sat in sort of one of those, i mean, anywhere in the stadium, really, going up and down the stairs, they're they're not the easiest to traverse all the time.
00:22:27
DailySaintsPod
and there's And there's lots of them. There's you know quite a big stadium, that goes a long way back. i think we go back to like row Zed, Zed or something. It's, you know, it's lot stairs. And if that's something you struggle with, i guess it's nice to have the ability to to have visibility of not doing as as hard work with that.
Social Impact and Technological Advances
00:22:51
DailySaintsPod
They had a chat with the Saints Foundation where it was raised that for every £1 spent by the Foundation, £5 of social value is generated in the city.
00:23:03
DailySaintsPod
TSP had, Turtle Saints Pod, had the Saints Foundation representative on the other week and they were talking about what social value means and about that it's sort of creating these opportunities and generating things in the city for for sort of people who need it most, even if it's like, you know, a session that's designed to assist with men's mental health or a disabled football session or or just a session put on in an area where
00:23:37
DailySaintsPod
where the kids don't get those kind of opportunities, you know, to go and have a session of football for a couple of hours of an afternoon. It's all value that they're putting back into the city. And that's great. oh I mean, £1 spent to £5 back seems like really good numbers. Obviously, I don't have, like, a working knowledge of football charities or or other football clubs, charities to know, sort of where that sits in the grand scheme of things but for the city it can't be a bad thing the same with all this and there talk of a new premier league fans fund which is being launched but they didn't really have any information about that they have a call booked for it which got interesting that there's all of these sort of things exist give back to to the community is is nice
00:24:24
DailySaintsPod
They talked about the Portsmouth fixture. They raised that the timing was too early for the travel and the kickoff time was ridiculous, being midday on a Sunday. that You know, having to get to the ground on that that sort of time with no public transport at that time in the morning and no on-site parking was a big ask.
00:24:44
DailySaintsPod
Apparently, the kickoff time was completely decided by TV, despite the fact that it wasn't on a main Sky channel. it was on Sky Sports Plus, so... uh yeah fascinating interesting insight i think the consensus as the club talked to the fan board was they kind of were there wasn't a lot more they could have done by the constraints that were in place but Yeah, an interesting one. I don't know if the feedback really made its way back to the club about how a lot of the fan base feels, or I don't even really know if if the opinion I hold is the same opinion that a lot of the fan base has. But for me, they really killed the atmosphere of those games. who They sort of deliberately took made it as difficult as possible for away fans.
00:25:46
DailySaintsPod
But I like a bit bite in the game. I don't know. yeah tough balance to strike in the modern world for sure but it is what it is and hopefully they can learn from that because if you know if they're going doing it more next year they have the experience of this year to to grow with and go by There was a commercial update that ticketing and specifically hospitality ticket rates are down 3%, which is apparently normal for the winter, which is fine.
00:26:18
DailySaintsPod
The club have been working with football operations to reduce the number of empty seats that are there because of player comps and to put them back on sale, which is Good. Interesting. I'm surprised there wasn't already more of a push to that with the club, if for no other reason than...
00:26:37
DailySaintsPod
that's more money that they can make. So it seems like such an obvious, you know, especially, you know, in the Premier League season and for some games and championship, when when tickets are a hot commodity and they're selling out and you still have demand for tickets, you'd want to be freeing up as many of those seats that aren't going to be used as possible, which is not to take away the ability of the players to use them.
00:27:03
DailySaintsPod
Don't get me wrong, but if they're if they're going to be empty anyway...
Future Fan Engagement Initiatives
00:27:06
DailySaintsPod
It's basically a free gain of profit in my eyes. There was talks about the ticket app and the updates and the club communications, which is all fine. We talked about the ticket apps and digital tickets to death. The away tickets for West Brom are going be digital and on the Saints tickets app, which is interesting. Now, I know because I have, as discussed on the show, family connections to West Brom and have been to the Hawthorns to to watch West Brom, that they have a ticket app that is identical to ours, presumably the same third party that provides it for both, which is presumably what has made it so convenient to have tickets on our app for this fixture, which is fine.
00:27:56
DailySaintsPod
This is is a little bit sad for me personally because think we mentioned on the show yesterday, this is going to be the first time I get to take my kids to an away game because, you know, keep it to a familiar stadium they've been to before, I suppose. but Yeah, so they're not going to have like a physical paper ticket as a keepsake of their first away day, which which for me, sentimentally, is is a bit sad.
00:28:22
DailySaintsPod
But I guess that's kind of the world we live in these days. You don't get paper tickets. A lot of the days that when I was their age and going off to gigs and concerts and God knows what, that you'd keep your ticket and you'd pin it to your wall and yeah i guess there's uh that's not as easy to do with the digital ticketing age but from an accessibility perspective i guess it is also know much easier to get into the ground with just having my phone on me and not having to worry about carrying it around so a bit sad but i'm not a dinosaur enough to to not see some of the benefits
00:29:04
DailySaintsPod
Interesting the club are in very early stages of looking at a reward system or loyalty points relating to attendance for next season. So that will be interesting to see how that plays out.
00:29:15
DailySaintsPod
They're also talking about removing season ticket discount and replacing it with some sort of sort credit, which will be interesting to see. I mean, it's easy to see the remove season ticket discount and immediately get angry there, but i guess we'll wait and see. But with those sorts of things, it does feel like another potential benefit.
00:29:36
DailySaintsPod
kind of being taken away from our season ticket holders. But I guess if they come up with a reasonable enough sort of store credit package that seems suitable, then it kind of is what it I suppose.
Conclusion and Future Plans
00:29:51
DailySaintsPod
Club potentially looking to offer free coach travel to Preston. They were discussing with the fan advisory board how they might go about that and the sort of whether it would be a good reward for for lots of fans who have been on lots of away days this season.
00:30:17
DailySaintsPod
And yet that was it, the meeting as a whole. And so to me, the most interesting thing is that these sort of meetings happen regularly and that the notes are available openly on the Saints website to go and see, which is fantastic and and definitely worth a read if you've got a spare sort of 15 minutes sit and read through it. This one was from the 3rd of February, so just over a month ago.
00:30:43
DailySaintsPod
But they do them every few months. And yeah, just some some good stuff. Interesting the the sort to think about the thoughts that have to go on behind the scenes. you know There's a lot going on. which see's We were talking last week, and we talked in my my solo episode last week all the week before about the importance of perspective and taking a step back and seeing the wider picture because it's very easy to hone in on the results. And, oh, we haven't won
00:31:14
DailySaintsPod
Four games a row. Or now we're winning. We've got seven wins in a row Happy days. it's It's easy to get lost in that emotional rollercoaster without thinking that actually a lot of the thoughts, especially of those in charge of the club, have to be six, 12, 18 months ahead and out in the future for these sorts of things.
00:31:36
DailySaintsPod
And it's good to know that they sort of keep touch with this fan advisory board. And yeah, it'll be interesting to see what comes out of some of those stuff. And it's it's nice to just get an insight on things that you don't always get an insight to, like the season ticket stuff and the benefits and any of the travel packages. It's just the interest interesting. It interests me anyway. And hopefully my summary of it has interested you.
00:32:04
DailySaintsPod
That is all that I have got time for today. So thank you so much, everyone, for joining me. Let me know your thoughts on any of it. Caspianda, Matt Gill, any of it. I cannot wait to hear any of your thoughts.
00:32:19
DailySaintsPod
As always, I love reading through them, engaging with them. It genuinely brings me joy to to do it. So let me know. We are Daily Saints Pod everywhere. All the socials, X, TikTok, Blue Sky, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, absolutely everywhere. And while you're there, why not give us a like, follow, subscribe?
00:32:41
DailySaintsPod
All of those things go so far to help us out as a newly independent podcast. And and we appreciate all of the the support that we get. We will be back tomorrow to preview our upcoming FA Cup clash against Fulham in what promises to be an interesting game for sure.
00:33:01
DailySaintsPod
Lots of... I know lots of uncertainties heading into the game about how much either of those teams are going to rotate. But we will talk about it in depth tomorrow. Until then, though, everybody, have a wonderful day and we will see you then.