THE CONCRETE ROUNDABOUT (TCR)

Yes. Although I freely admit I may be in a minority on that one.

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It's Pete's train set, and we should all feel honoured to be granted the privilege of paying to play with it.

"Shut the fuck up, you sausage!"

I don't think the on the field part of the club has any relevance personally. Perhaps if we'd come out and won 5-0 on Saturday it wouldn't have been whipped up into such a storm, but last season was similar in terms of what the matchday experience offered, it's just that this season the changes that have been implemented either came off poorly from my experience, or weren't even communicated so came as a shock to everybody (staff included).

Last season I would actively refuse to head to my seat before the teams were coming out because the MKFM show was diabolical but I could suffer through a few £4.80 pints or whatever it was with the discount and not have to listen to it. This season there are new issues in place that are causing me to feel like there's absolutely no point in turning up early. I may as well rock up at 5 to 3, watch the football and fuck off again at full time. I hate that, by the way, because football is my social release after a weeks work, but it feels like the club don't want us there outside of the match.

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Cuboid of bum fluff

The only things I’m bothered about are the shirts and shop. As well as the removal of bottle caps.

PW addressed the bottle cap issue and said it was a stupid thing to do. So happy with that one.

I totally disagree on the kits though. Think they were a massive mistake. The lack of additional options in the shop, such as merch and kits of under 8’s is an issue too.

As for the removal of the ST discount for food/drink, who genuinely cares about that? It made extremely little difference and most times I didn’t even ask for it.

Parking costs were explained pretty well too. We need to make money from our car park, like other clubs do and the change will ensure that.

Marketing is a hard one to argue with too. If they’ve seen no return of investment over the years, then the marketing is pointless. However, I do still think something is better than nothing and perhaps a little bit of promotion in CenterMK would be wise. I do think we also invest quite heavily in our media department and the content that is produced is very good.

I think people are getting too hung up on the discount thing.

The main issue isn’t the actual price of things, although even from last season the full prices of everything has gone up. That’s more an annoyance.

The main issue, for me at least, is the lack of communication. Nobody was told it was gone, not even the bar staff in Lewington’s. The fact that it was found out after a handful of other issues on the day only added to my annoyance on Saturday.

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Cuboid of bum fluff

I think one thing that's abundantly clear from Pete's Interview is that the success of the football club and the match day experience from his perspective are completely linked. I.e. Promotion from League One, would increase the numbers, increase the budget and therefore improve the match day experience. I do get that and it's concerning that even lowering the prices isn't attracting more fans through the the gate and ironically we supposedly have more season tickets through the door. We are going to need to up our gate numbers and to do that, means promotion. So stripping back and leaning the club's financial resources to prioritize the first team squad seems the right thing to do. I dare say the vast majority of our recent player sales probably haven't been reinvested back into the squad, but to recover from COVID.

What I think does need to be improved immediately is the communication and openness with fans in regards to the decision making. We don't need a running commentary on all of the club affairs, but I think some simple Comms where we know decisions will impact the fan experience. The club need to be proactive on this and not reactive, as we saw last night.The financial aspect isn't ideal in regards to price increases, but it's happening everywhere. The negligence of comms and general aspects where things can be mitigated, i.e. the concerns raised on the Meltdown thread and the bottle top situation (Which didn't bother me) is down to poor management on the match day and shouldn't be used as an excuse going forward.

Overall the club need to get a lot better at recognising the fan experience and nipping it in the bud, be it through Comms or compromising. It would avoid a lot of this ill feeling building up. It can't be easy running a club!

You have better ears than me. I couldn't hear them even if I wanted to. Not that I do. I spend the time talking to people who I only really see at the football, but then again I am a pro at selective listening. Ask my mrs.

That's it in a nutshell.

The food has been terrible for two or three years. The beer has always been shit.

It's simply that that connection between Club and fans has gone.

I didn't even realise there was an issue with bottle tops until I read this. None were being removed when I went in. Since having mine removed for the AFC game last season I always take a spare bottle top now just in case

I understand that if the bar staff don't know then thats a bit naughty, but is it really the biggest issue we have right now? When you get discounted food offers at supermarkets they don't make an announcement or have a ticker tape parade acknowledging the discount has ended. I mean I have a clubcard necter card and the new asda app and I expect an email or letter to advise me of such as I am such a "valued" customer of all those three supermarkets.

As for the price of things. Its food and drink (well I assume it is) of course things are going to increase again supermarkets dont tell you a tin of beans will increase in price twice in three months, but they have cause I noticed that they have. Fact of life. This is the world we live in now. It's not good, but if we are the only club that has done it then maybe we have an aggrievance, but I doubt that we are.

I really dont think that any of this would be as a bigger issue if we were in the 2nd tier or at least had a good start, but when people (rightly or wrongly) have said the squad is a shadow of itself and we could be in for our worst start in 5 years then you already have the hump the little things will be more noticeable. Again, no slight on anyone just a fact of human nature.

No. It's one little part of a whole host of little issues that add up to create a giant clusterfuck of a day,

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Cuboid of bum fluff