GIBBYTON

Lines are back open. Now to get in their faces and get a win

The away ticket numbers were just over 3k, and announced home tickets are over 2k sold, that's 5k in a week! Will sell out the 8.5k no problem, going to be some atmosphere.

Must say I have been very quick to criticize the club for the speed at which they make change/improvements, but for me this is a real watershed moment for the new General Manager, he has not been at the club long and has identified an actual plan to address in the short term. improving the speed of the gates will help for every match so that's positive all round. Working with the BBC to minimize the camera impact is also another great step. Long may the improvements continue, and open communication like this from the club. Lets hope they address the issues with the stewards next, there are too many to list but as an example, they only have 1 master key to override the turnstiles (surly they can have more!) and then the steward with it walking away from the gates for nearly 5 minutes, with multiple people unable to get in backing up the queue.

Wow, that is just fantastic news, locking the manager down for an extended period really allows the start of a more long term squad building approach. Getting key players like Wilson on a longer deal and now Dougie show the start of some competence from the club.

You would hope, these are the types of things the club should be looking at, spend a few hundred quid to buy some additional hand scanners, even if it gets 25% more through its a small investment and show the clubs willingness to not just blame people showing up 15min before a match starts.

You would expect the home crowd to be larger than normal with a winnable cup game against an inconsistent premiership opposition, but it feels like groundhog day the camera's in the cowshed are a real impact with the larger crowds. When you add in the current issues with turnstiles, these are the areas we need to start to show we are being run like a professional football club. Both of these issues have been around for a number of years, I also appreciate the club do not have the funds to resolve these issues fully without a significant impact on playing budgets. I just wish they would make steps to alleviate the issues, even work out a number of small changes and approach MCT / get a local company to sponsor

The level of accountability from the GMFC board to MCT and wider shareholders has been a concern I have raised in the earlier days of MCT, at that point all I would get back is that they would put in place governance with no detail as to how or when. If they are now in a position to articulate what they need to do, that really does increase the confidence level in MCT as a credible outfit. The last thing we need is to end up in a position where GMFC board is moving in a direction against the wishes of MCT and there is no mechanism to intervene, we will just end up like Stirling Albion.

I can understand the GM/CEO, saftey officer and a few of the board having to sortnout covid issues. What about the commercial manager, digital marketing and board member responsible for marketing/commercial matters. This really isn't difficult to plug the basic merch that already exists, get a few Christmas special hats/mugs and then go look at other teams websites and socials and get a few ideas. Literally a few hous work. MCT spent a lot of time talking to the thousands that could be saved and thousands of extra revenue before the takeover, this shouldn't need time to implement if what they were telling us was true. This continues to add to the growing mistrust of the MCT and GMFC boards.