Albion Assembly Meeting Minutes | November 2024
The minutes from the latest Albion Assembly meeting can be found below.
Albion Assembly (AA) Meeting - The Hawthorns.
Thursday, November 21 - 7pm.
The following minutes are a general summary of the meeting and contain no direct quotations.
Club staff in attendance: Managing Director, Mark Miles (MM), Director of Communications & Fan Engagement, Ian Skidmore (IS), Supporter Liaison Officer, Cindy Groen (CG), Director of The Albion Foundation, Rob Lake (RL), Head of Marketing, Rachel Rankin (RR), Head of Security, Match Day Operations & Facilities, Howard Lewis-Jones (HLJ), and Senior Communications Officer, Sean Watts (SW).
Apologies: Matthew James, Aisha Patel, Paul Kent, Bob Downing, Lizzie Hayward, Shin Aujla, Chloe Lane, Sandra Hughes, Karen Geddes, Rachel Coldicott, Rich Jefferson, and Gurdial Singh.
INTRODUCTIONS
Ian Skidmore opened the meeting, listed the apologies from members who were unable to attend, and handed over to Rob Lake for the first agenda item.
THE ALBION FOUNDATION
RL confirmed The Albion Foundation (TAF) was in the process of moving their offices to the Birmingham County FA at Ray Hall Lane, and that the transfer would be completed in early December.
He praised “Blind Dave” Heeley’s Western Front Challenge efforts, which raised more than £80,000, and spoke of Dave’s pride at being involved in the pre-match activities for the remembrance match against Burnley.
Looking ahead to Christmas, RL said there were collaborations between TAF, the club and external charities planned, alongside a hospital visit, a Hawthorns Hub/Memories dinner, a Junior Baggies party and ‘give back’ days.
Elsewhere, he said they were given ‘exemplary’ in their Ofsted Primary Stars programme, and they have been invited to the Premier League Kicks Christmas Truce Visit in Belgium. RL also explained the work the Foundation were doing alongside the club regarding EDI and sustainability, such as Black History Month events and planned tree planting.
He added that Ashish Patel - cousin of Chairman Shilen Patel - had spent time with TAF when he was last over. RL finished by advertising their end of year Gala Dinner. Details can be found here.
INDEPENDENT FOOTBALL REGULATOR
Mark Miles proceeded to give an update on the independent football regulator. He said it will be a positive step and Albion are supportive in principle, but that they and other clubs are keen to make sure it works for football. He said it was important that those working within the proposed regulator understood the nuances of the sport.
MM said the bill has recently had its second reading in parliament and explained how the new Labour government have made some revisions from that presented earlier in the year. Overall, it now proposes - among other things - that all clubs must have a license to operate, more stringent owner & director tests be put in place backstop powers regarding payments and fair deals for the pyramid, an EDI code, and minimum requirements on fan engagement (which is further elaborated on in the next agenda item). The bill also provides the opportunity for the women’s game to be captured in the future.
Members questioned whether discussions between the Premier League and EFL were still ongoing. MM said he believes so, but no positive decisions appear to be imminent. MM continues to state that he felt that a regulator may help with the progression of these talks.
FAN ENGAGEMENT
IS resumed the conversation specifically on the fan engagement section within the bill, pointing out the AA had been running for almost 10 years - so Albion were ahead of many other clubs in that regard.
He added the AA would remain important, and mentioned they were considering creating another, smaller group - a fan advisory board - who have direct contact with club leaders. This would be a requirement should the club get promoted to the Premier League. He suggested that if it went ahead, it would be made up of democratically elected individuals from various different groups, including the AA. Full potential details were still being decided.
CLUB & GOVERNANCE
MM said that a lot of time in the last 18 months had been spent on investigations or looking back, and now they were able to start moving forward and plan for the short, medium and long-term.
He confirmed the club’s accounts will be submitted by March 31, 2025, ahead of the statutory deadline. All accounts will subsequently be sent out as usual - and an AGM will be held after that date as previously committed to.
MM spoke about positive, constructive meetings he and others have had with the new Mayor of the West Midlands, recently elected MPs and the leadership at Sandwell Council. He said they are all keen to make a positive change over the next four or five years, and MM reiterated to them how important Albion is to the local community. He stated it felt like the club was being listened to by these parties and was optimistic about the future.
Moving on, recent improvements to the traffic systems around The Hawthorns was highlighted, as well as upcoming anniversary projects (IS later elaborates on this).
FOOTBALL
MM started the next agenda item by saying IS will invite Andrew Nestor to attend a future AA meeting, in the same vein as Shilen Patel attended one earlier this year.
Men’s team
On the summer transfer window, MM believes it was successful, and confirmed the wage bill had been further reduced alongside the team being added to. He was pleased that existing squad members, like Darnell Furlong, and younger players had signed contract extensions. He hopes it will be another strong season following an encouraging start, and shares Carlos Corberán’s view that it is a close division this campaign.
Members questioned if the club was in a position to strengthen in January, and MM said that all options were under consideration.
Women’s team
MM explained how all club departments were continuing to get involved with the women’s team following their official integration earlier this year. He explained that the club were still looking at venues closer to The Hawthorns, citing crowds of more than 2,000 for recent games at the stadium as an example that enthusiasm from the fan base is there.
He also praised the team’s efforts in the county cup and Adobe Women’s FA Cup, having recently progressed in both.
Academy
MM rounded-up the football section by complimenting the Academy’s continued work, reiterating their main objective is to produce players that can represent the first-team. He spoke about the impact the new National League Cup - which Albion’s Under-21s are competing in - could have in giving the youngsters a taste of senior football. MM stated he is pleased with the work the club are doing in retaining young players on contracts, too.
TICKETING
IS updated members on the creation of a ticketing working group, and committed to gathering further information before they got together for the first time. He said they were experimenting with accessible features on the app, and reiterated the club’s desire to move to it full-time in the future.
Additionally, he mentioned the ticket exchange was steadily growing, and that some supporters unable to attend were now donating their seats to the Foundation as well.
HISTORY
IS explained the club were working on ideas for upcoming anniversaries - citing the 125th anniversary of The Hawthorns, which is in September 2025, and the club’s 150th anniversary further down the line in 2028. Though he was unable to comment on specifics, he said the ownership group were offering their full support - and more details will be mentioned to AA members at a later date.
FACILITIES
Howard Lewis-Jones told members he has now absorbed facilities as part of his role - and said the new ownership, as well as the aforementioned upcoming anniversaries, is bringing opportunity to look at various different options for refreshing the stadium. He admitted some of the work, particularly around repainting the external of the Birmingham Road End and other areas, would be costly, challenging and extensive, but they were being looked at.
HLJ also provided an update on Albion’s medical provisions. He told members:
- At the beginning of the season, they increased the number of matchday ambulances (provided by West Midlands Ambulance Service) at The Hawthorns from two to three. There are two paramedics with each, therefore six in total.
- Elsewhere for a men’s home game, there are at least 20 first aiders, four stretcher bearers, and 260 stewards - all of which have been trained in first aid together with a crowd doctor.
- Meanwhile in the control room, there is an ambulance commander and a first aid commander. All of those are instantly contactable by the radio system.
- And despite there being no rule for ambulances to be at women’s fixtures, which did not sit right with the club, all of their home matches either at The Hawthorns or at Redditch have an ambulance in attendance.
Although he could not go into detail or take questions, HLJ also said Albion would provide support to any inquiry or coroner’s inquest regarding the sad passing of Mark Townsend. He explained how the incident prompted the club to undertake a further internal review to make sure they were meeting and exceeding safety standards.
MATCHDAY OPERATIONS
HLJ continued to the next item, matchday operations, and explained there had been encouragingly low numbers of arrests (four), ejections (around 20) and supporters who were refused entry (four) across the last seven Hawthorns matches.
He said the club had written to and suspended more than 40 people who were being difficult towards stewards and fellow supporters, with many invited to the stadium for a discussion and then allowed back on the promise of better behaviour. The fan referral scheme has also been used for more serious offenders, some of which have completed an education programme and subsequently signed a behavioural contract to improve the way they act at football matches.
HLJ confirmed the club has already this season been inspected by the Sports Ground Safety Authority and Sandwell Council, and the reviews they received were glowing. Finally, he talked about a ticketing operation to stop those abusing the cheap price of U17 tickets - and believes they have seen a significant uptake in supporters upgrading their tickets to the appropriate category.
MATCHDAY ATMOSPHERE
MM said matchday atmosphere as a whole was one of the projects they were looking at. This includes from when supporters are walking up to the stadium, to the music choices, to safe standing during the match, and many other topics.
Rachel Rankin listed some developments so far, such as the entertainment offerings in the Fan Zone, food in the concourse, a more accessible Club Shop, enhanced big screen content and supporters’ song submissions. However, she also stated there were further improvements planned and it was a constant work in progress.
AOB
AA members praised a recent business event, and said they liked the club’s video output on social media, giving the kitchen staff feature as an example.
A question was asked regarding previously mentioned plans to grow food at the training ground, and RL said the head chef was now a trained beekeeper so they will be producing their own honey, alongside other food. He confirmed a recent tree-planting day was postponed because of the snow, but other sustainability projects were going well.
Members asked if the board would be expanded, and MM responded to say that the Chairman had previously committed to look at these areas.
Lastly, the new social media platform ‘Blue Sky’ was discussed - with IS saying the media and communications team were monitoring the situation.
Date of next meeting: Thursday, February 20, 2025.