Chief Executive Mark Devlin issues latest monthly piece
- An update from the Huddersfield Town Board
- Chief Executive Mark Devlin issues this month’s article
- CEO discusses the squad, the new season and our first home game
The timing of our August update couldn’t be better, as we prepare to welcome everyone back to the John Smith’s Stadium on Saturday.
I cannot believe it has been over 500 days since our last home game with supporters, and we cannot wait to see you all in the stands this weekend. We’re expecting a very healthy attendance, and there is still time to get your ticket – you can buy online HERE and select ‘digital delivery’ to print it at home, or have it on your mobile device. Carlos and the team look forward to your passionate and loud support.
We’ve put in a lot of work to try and enhance your match day experience since you last visited, and I hope that’s reflected on Saturday. Alongside the aforementioned option to store your ticket on your smartphone, there are plenty of other new features for you on Saturday. These new features will continue to be improved and fine-tuned over the following few weeks.
If you haven’t visited our new Stadium Store, I’d encourage you to! It certainly has a more spacious feel to it now, and I think you’ll be really happy with the new design. Added to that, our very popular third kit goes on sale on Friday, which is another reason to pay a visit!
We’ve just announced details of our new ‘food festival’ area at the north end of the Stadium, held thanks to our new partner Deliveree. I certainly think that will add a new dimension to the day, alongside the return of Legends Bar for fans on match day in the same area.
Deliveree are one of several new commercial partners we’ve had joins us over the last few weeks, and I’d like to welcome them alongside AMT, the Metal Store, Magic Rock Brewing and the humm Group; thanks for your backing.
As you may know, we’ve brought both our public catering (kiosks) and hospitality catering in-house. This will allow us to directly control pricing, quality and range of products and service levels. Hopefully, by improving our offer in this area, it will help us to generate more revenue for the club as well. There will be more details about exactly what to expect on htafc.com on Friday.
Hopefully you’ve also seen that we’ve changed our match day programme to be free to the first 10,000 supporters on a first come, first served basis, with our advertising partners making that possible.
We’ll also have activities for our younger fans outside the Core Stand, and inside the Fantastic Media Family Stand too.
I’ve had a few questions about what fans need to do ahead of, and on, match day. That is covered by our FAQs document, but I will reiterate the answers to the most pertinent two here. For Saturday's game against Fulham, you do not need to provide proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test to attend, but we would ask you not to come if you are showing any symptoms or have been asked to isolate by the NHS app. We’d also recommend you wear a mask in the indoor concourse areas.
It was great to see so many of you at both Sheffield Wednesday and Derby County; thank you for your tremendous support. It really whetted the appetite for Saturday, and I think we’ve had an encouraging start on the football front too. There is still work to do, clearly, but the early signs are that our new recruits have fitted in well and made us a much stronger outfit, evidenced by our ability to cope with missing four players – not to mention our Head Coach – due to positive COVID tests last weekend.
The transfer window is still open, and it is still possible that players can leave and arrive before the end of August. There has been a lot of speculation surrounding Lewis O’Brien’s future, in particular, and I can confirm we have received and rejected two transfer offers for him. We respect every player’s desire to test themselves at the highest possible level, but equally any transfer must be right for Huddersfield Town, both in terms of value and timing. We will do our best to keep supporters informed as the window reaches its conclusion.
For now, I want to finish by thanking you all for your support once again. Roll on Saturday!
Mark Devlin
Chief Executive
Huddersfield Town
