11th August 2021

Feedback from Saturday's match

On Saturday the U's made a great start to League 1 with a battling draw against a highly competitive Oxford side. As fans we’d not been in the stadium for a very long time, so it was great to see so many supporters back at the Abbey.

After the match CUSP put out an appeal to fans for feedback and there was a great response – thank you! We’re pleased to say that a lot of the items that were raised were already on the “hit list” of the club (as Ian Mather eluded to in his Swindon programme notes last night). However, to ensure transparency we’re pleased to be able to address the most common issues that were raised.

Concerns as to why the North Habbin was so full but the South Habbin was empty
Firstly, Oxford didn’t request the allocation for that area. Moving forward, whilst Covid is a significant factor, the club will open the South Habbin to our own fans for most games. The exceptions will be when we have very large away crowds when we will take the substantial income that selling most/all of the space will bring for catering/food/bars, as well as ticket revenue.

Catering
There was a LOT of feedback on this topic! The club is working with new partners - Wilson Vale - who share the same aim in improving the catering for all. They and the club are working on getting all tea bars open (you’ll have seen the Josh Coulson bar open for the Swindon match) and there are new Chip/Pin machines coming to speed things up. Saturday was their first game in charge and there were already (before feedback) a lot of plans in the pipeline for improvements.

PA system
This is already being addressed, and hopefully improvements will follow in the next few weeks.

Programmes
There is an aim to increase the print run following the surge in the demand and the additional away fans. The club is aware that some who subscribed to the programme didn’t receive their copy until after the match. At this point the club is in the hands of the Post Office in that regard. They are posted on Thursday, so the hope is that all programmes will arrive in time. The Club is working with CUSP so we can look to monitor this situation.

As CUSP we want to work with the club and the fans to make the experience at the club the best it can be. We hope we’ve raised all the issues that came to light before, during and after Saturday’s match but please let us know if we’ve missed anything. We are here to work and support everyone and we welcome feedback at any time through our social channels and email.

We will also be looking at how we can engage with fans more over the coming season - watch this space!