Meeting with Oxford United on 10 April 2002

Three members of the interim committee (Terry Taylor, Jon Moore and Trevor Lambert) met with Nilu Kanani, sales director at OUFC, on 10 April 2002. This followed two previous meetings held with the whole OxVox committee before the launch meeting.

The meeting was held in a constructive spirit. Mrs Kanani confirmed that club insignia would appear on the stadium soon, hopefully within a month, but definitely by the start of next season. There was currently a problem with design and materials, given the nature of the stadium structure.

OxVox chose four immediate issues to focus on : ticket pricing for next season, Oxford Learning United (the study support centre for local young people which is intended to be located at the stadium), football-related infrastructure, and public relations.

On ticket pricing, we put the case strongly for a small reduction in prices, or at least a freeze, in recognition of the excellent level of home support and the poor season just experienced. We pointed out that OUFC was among the most expensive clubs in the division. Mrs Kanani reported that a meeting on pricing would be held very soon.

On Oxford Learning United, we urged the club to meet with local education authority officials as a matter of urgency, to end the uncertainty surrounding the project’s future. We expressed the view that this was a valuable community project for the club.

On infrastructure, we sought clarification of the position regarding the manager and other coaching staff, and stressed the importance to the club of an active youth set-up and scouting policy. We were told that an announcement about management would be forthcoming by the end of the week but were not given any details; since then the appointment of Ian Atkins has been confirmed, of course. The importance of the other matters was recognised and we would be discussing them further at future meetings.

With regard to public relations, we emphasised the need for communication and asked for an open meeting to be held with the fans at which Ian Atkins and Firoz Kassam would be present to answer questions about the future. We pointed out the unfortunate impression created by Mr Kassam’s programme notes for the Leyton Orient match and the Oxford Mail’s story about Jack Casley. We also asked for Mr Kassam to be present at a future meeting with OxVox.

Further meetings were arranged for 16 May and 19 June; agendas will be prepared in advance so that Nilu Kanani can arrange for appropriate members of the club staff to be present to address relevant issues.