Stewarding and SLOs
Following on from our presentation to the Club, and as one of the ISC priority match day experiences to work on, we shadowed a senior Club staff member Sunday 16th January 2022 to observe the behind the scenes work . Further discussions have led to proposed next steps. We will keep you posted as these progress.
WHUST has long-term strategies which run parallel with our day-to-day efforts to advocate for West Ham fans.
We are actively involved in an on-going campaign with the Club called: “Taking Back Control of the Matchday Experience”.
Through our annual membership surveys and comments received from supporters through our ‘Matchday Service’, two issues consistently come top of the main concerns that West Ham fans have: poor stewarding and the quality and price of the catering.
We realised that we needed to present to the Club concrete proposals on stewarding and catering rather than continually pointing out repeated instances of poor service.
It was important to understand more about the stewarding operation, so we interviewed many different people and organisations including former stewards at the Boleyn Ground, current and former stewards at the London Stadium, and a contractor that provides stewarding services. We also contacted SIA training providers and met with staff from the Football Supporters Association to learn about ‘best practice’ operations from other clubs.
On catering, we talked to several people that had previously traded on Green Street as well as current concessions at the London Stadium. We met a former local authority street licensing officer who gave us a greater understanding of the issues facing licenced traders outside of the Stadium and the Queen Elizabeth Park Island where it is located. The Spurs Trust kindly shared their views based on their experience of the catering provision of Delaware North when they were renting Wembley Stadium.
This research culminated in WHUISA holding a virtual Structured Dialogue meeting with the Club in July. We met with Ben Illingworth (Head of Matchday Operations), Tara Warren (Executive Director, Marketing and Communications) and Jake Heath (Head of Supporter Services), presenting our ideas on regaining control of two elements of stewarding and catering as key elements of the supporter matchday experience.
Here is a synopsis of our presentation:
The Club released this statement after the meeting:
"The Club welcomed WHUISA’s positive approach to the meeting and the discussions on how we could improve the stewarding and catering services for supporters at London Stadium. The Club will need to take the time to discuss the presentation together with colleagues and partners before coming back to WHUISA, and the ISC, to continue discussions. We share the same aim of enhancing the supporter experience wherever we can, working with our fans and supporters’ groups."
In October, the Club announced plans to implement several new initiatives with the aim of improving stewarding. We are pleased that some of the recommendations we made in our discussions with the Club have been included in these proposals.