THANKS to Saddlers Insight, during February a number of questions were put to various members of staff on a variety of subjects regarding Walsall Football Club.

Every query that has come in has been answered and the response has been emailed back to the supporter who emailed in their question.

A selection have appeared in our Official Matchday Programme - 'White & Red'.

However, at the end of each month, more questions will be published right here on www.saddlers.co.uk. So, if you have a question, just email: daniel.mole@walsallfc.co.uk.

You may have a question to ask the coaching staff or the youth department. You may have a ticket office query, a question for a Club Official, or you may just want to find out more about stadium operations, the Media Department or the Conference & Events side of the business. You may even want to ask one of our players what their favourite colour is!

Whatever your question, simply email daniel.mole@walsallfc.co.uk with 'Saddlers Insight' in the subject header and your name and location. Alternatively, write to: Saddlers Insight, Banks's Stadium, Bescot Crescent, Walsall WS1 4SA.

This Q & A session is the sole copyright of Walsall Football and cannot be replicated, in part or whole, without prior permission.

February Questions

I'd like to ask Jeff Bonser what he thinks of this season after all the talk beforehand of this being our "promotion push", please.

Tim Wilkes

Tim,

Looking at the season so far, I thought we had a very bright start to the campaign, which unfortunately we were not able to build on. Our home form let us down and this was one of the reasons behind bringing in a new management team.

As is sometimes the way, we have suffered injuries to key players at key times. At the moment, four of our most experienced players in Stephen Hughes, Stephen Roberts, Michael Ricketts and Rhys Weston are battling to overcome injury. Any team in this division would miss players of this quality.

On the positive side, it has given a number of our younger players the opportunity to gain first-team experience, which can only bode well for the future. When you appoint a new management team, as we have done recently, you have to look forward and not backwards.

I have a good feeling about Chris Hutchings and Martin O'Connor and firmly believe that they are the best men to move this club forward.

Jeff Bonser, Chairman

I went to the match on Saturday (vs. Leeds) aware that as a season ticket holder in the West Bromwich stand I was not allowed to walk past the stand or the away stand following advice from West Midlands Police as stated in the letter from the club.

Imagine my surprise when I saw several Leeds fans parking their cars behind the astro turf obviously not being turned away by stewards seeing their shirts and scarfs were a different colour to ours. This was compounded even more when numerous Leeds fans were seen walking all around the ground despite West Midlands Police saying Walsall fans couldn't.

Why does it appear that there was one rule for one and one for the other on Saturday or was it simply Bescot was a substitute for Elland Road and their fans could do what they like. I just hope that I've still got an undamaged seat for Tuesday's game (weather permitting).

Regards.

Mark Johnson

Mark,

The Car Park Stewards were fully aware that Leeds Supporters should be prevented from parking on car parks other than the raised one near the hotel.

A number were turned away and sent to the correct car park but if they did not show where they were from on arrival this could not be done.I would have to accept that some did get through but every effort was made to stop them.

We did not release anything about supporters mixing and walking around the ground before the game.The only restriction was that our supporters would not be able to walk behind the West Bromwich Building Society Stand after the game or round past the front of the Away Stand following advice from West Midlands Police.

Kind Regards

This Q & A session is the sole copyright of Walsall Football and cannot be replicated, in part or whole, without prior permission.

Hello Daniel,

Firstly, I was really interested to read the comments posted today, 1st February and look forwards to the next month's comments. I would like to see this as a more regular feature. Also it would be good to have a nominated player each month who would answer fans questions which would be posted on the website in the same way.

I know you can do this in the programme but in today's climate of recession not many people can afford the £2.50 for a programme and the website reaches far more people than the programme. Anyway, I have a question about site maintenance.

How often do repairs get done around the ground and do the repair men check all facilities?

The reason I ask is that 3 toilets in the ladies toilets in the Floor 2 Go stand have been out of action since Christmas. One toilet has had an "out of Order" sign on it since the start of the season over 6 months ago and the other two have been blocked since Christmas.

I would have felt repairs to toilets should take priority if not just because of the Health & Safety issues. I would also point out that the sign on the door is handwritten on an old bag used by the food counter to wrap pies! Not very professional.

I'm sure if this was happening in the men's toilets the repairs would have been done but I feel Walsall Football Club does not meet the needs of it's lady supporters very well.

I look forward to a reply.

Regards

Susan Wakefield, Walsall

Hi Susan,

Thanks for your email.

Saddlers' Insight is now a regular feature, which has been in place for most of the season.

If you click on the link below, you will see the kind of questions we have been receiving since this initiative began:

http://www.saddlers.co.uk/page/SaddlersInsightIndex/0,,10428,00.html

I put your question to our Safety Officer, Dave Storr, and his response is below.

Susan,

An independent company have been called out three times since Christmas in relation to the toilets in question.

These toilets are also used by the Sunday Market every week and it may be a problem with the amount of usage they get. The company will be out again this week as we cannot resolve the problem with a blockage below ground.

I have a remote control camera booked to check the pipework to see if we have a break in the soil pipes and hopefully we can get this sorted out once and for all. It is a major headache for supporters and myself but we are doing all we can.

There are a number of other toilets available for use and I can only apologise for the problems we are encountering. Hopefully, this problem will be rectified in the not too distant future.

Kind Regards

Dear Insight,

This question may have been answered before but in relation to the recent Leeds game I waswondering how much it cost the club to police that particular game. There seemed to be a lot of Police outside the ground at the end of the game and inside the ground during the game.

Jim Davis, Daventry

Hi Jim, 

The same officers were used outside as inside. They operate on three phases, before during and after the game. Needless to say that before the game they are mainly outside assisting stewards at turnstiles etc, during the game, they come in to enforce our segregation.

5 minutes before the end of the game they move outside to ensure the safety of everyone and again keep the segregation. This is then followed by them escorting the away coaches to the motorway.

The total cost to the Club for Saturday's operation was just over £19,000 plus VAT. There were no arrests made.

Kind Regards

Dave Storr, Stadium Operations Manager

Hi Daniel. Saddlers Insight is an excellent idea- good to see how the cup revenue is shared. I presume any tv fees are shared 50-50?

My other question for you is: Does the captain winning the toss still have the choice of ends or taking the kick off? From a Hereford supporter who enjoyed a recent visit to the Banks's Stadium and was grateful for the point!

Brian Davies, Hereford

Hi Brian,

Thanks for your question - good to hear from a supporter of another club.

Football League TV Fees aren't shared 50/50. In League One, the home side receive a £30,000 Facility Fee with the away team picking up £10,000. Carling Cup fixtures and Johnstone's Paint fixtures are equal revenue splits. Obviously there are different figures involved for the FA Cup as it is a Football Association competition rather than a Football League competition.

The captain who wins the toss gets to choose which end they want to kick towards.

Hope this helps

Daniel Mole, Communications Manager

Hi Daniel,

As we all know the country now finds itself gripped by the effects of a recession and this has dramatically contributed to the fall in attendances at our home games. Having been made redundant recently I now find myself in the very real situation of not being able to attend as many home games as I would like and I unfortunateley am not alone in this predicament. Therefore would it not make sense for the club to introduce a concession for the unemployed during these leaner times thus encouraging the return of this group of supporters?

This will also have a slight knock on effect on programme and food sales as well as being a good PR excercise for the club and this extra revenue is better than having empty seats. I can appreciate it would be slightly more difficult to police but you could ask for the supporter to not only present their Job Seekers card but also photo ID at the ticket office and be for advance sales only, not on match days.

Richard Gray

Hi Richard,

Thanks for your email. Whilst we have no plans to introduce a concessionary rate for the unemployed, we are in the process of reviewing our 2009/10 season-ticket prices and hope to have some favourable news to report in the near future.

Thanks again for taking the time to send in your thoughts 

Daniel Mole, Communications Manager

Hi,

I was wondering if there are any plans to re-release any classic shirts like we did with the shirts from the Milk Cup run a while ago? There are several shirts from classic moments in our history you could use, and the last line of retro shirts seemed to sell quite well.

Thanks

Rob Perks

Hi Rob, What a good idea!

This really got me thinking. As we are producing a '20 years at Bescot' book, your email made me think that we could do something with the classic kit concept. I will speak to our Head of Retail about this.

Basically, I was thinking that we could ask the fans to pick their most iconic kit from 'the Bescot years' via an online poll with the winning kit making it through to production.

Daniel Mole, Communications Manager

This Q & A session is the sole copyright of Walsall Football and cannot be replicated, in part or whole, without prior permission.