Updates on:
THST AGM
Spurs journalists event
FA Cup ticketing concerns
Fan Advisory Board
Annual quiz night
THST AGM – reminder
Our Annual General Meeting will take place on Monday 19 February at CMS Cannon Place. As a Community Benefit Society, registered under the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014, we are required to hold an AGM each February. It’s important that as many of our members take part in the process as possible.
Four new places were made available on the Trust Board. Two nominations were received. Tristan Foot (who has been co-opted to the Board since Anthoulla Achillieos stepped down) and James Glick will therefore be elected to the Trust Board should the membership ratify their appointments at the AGM. Steve Cavalier is also standing for re-appointment to the Board.
All Life and Full members are encouraged to use their votes on the above resolutions either in person at the AGM on Monday 19 February or by proxy vote in advance of the meeting. Proxy votes need to be received by 18:00 on Wednesday 14 February via email, post or online survey. Thanks to everyone who has submitted their proxy vote already. Full details can be found on the dedicated AGM page of our website.
Once the proxy voting period has closed, we’ll be inviting Full and Life members yet to vote to register to attend the AGM in person. We look forward to welcoming as many of you as possible.
We’ll be publishing our Annual Report ahead of the AGM. This will summarise all the work we’ve done in the past year to represent you and improve your experience of supporting Tottenham Hotspur. Justin Ford, of Hubert and Ford, is currently working his magic on the design of the report.
An evening of insight and entertainment with Spurs journalists
More than 100 people packed into a ‘sold out’ event at the Royal Star pub to hear from Michael Bridge (Sky Sports News), Charlie Eccleshare (The Athletic), Alasdair Gold (Football London) and Dan Kilpatrick (Evening Standard) hosted by THST Chair Martin Buhagiar. They covered a range of topics, taking questions from the floor and X as well as sharing their own reflections including:
- TV fixture scheduling and the impact on match-attending supporters.
- Treatment of fans on away trips in Europe, in particular, at the San Siro, and the best ways to force a change in attitude and practice.
- Whether Spurs were likely to benefit from the recent focus on Financial Fair Play.
- Naming rights for the stadium and the relative financial merits of retaining the current name.
- Favourite stories covered by each journalist.
- The sale of Harry Kane.
- Which players were favourites for interviews.
- Manager signings v Club signings.
- The perceptions of managers in recent Spurs history.
- What makes Ange Postecoglou so different and so special.
- The development of youth team players and our loan strategy.
- The transfer window and players we might be interested in signing and those we aren’t.
It was a great opportunity for members to meet in person and to learn from those with real access to the Club. It’s testament to the reputations of the journalists that the evening sold out within an hour of tickets going on sale. We are enormously grateful to them for agreeing to support us in this way and helping us raise valuable funds for PCUK and Pancreatic Cancer charities in honour of our greatly missed former Board members Kevin Fitzgerald and Pete Haine.
We’ve had so much positive feedback from those who attended, we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and we definitely hope to repeat the event next year. Thank you to everyone who attended and made it such a lively and enjoyable evening, especially of course Alasdair, Charlie, Dan and Michael, and to Tony Stevens at THFC for donating a signed first team shirt for our raffle. Here’s to next time.
FA Cup ticketing concerns
The Trust fielded a number of queries as to why Ticket Exchange/Share were not available for the home FA Cup tie against Burnley, despite the fixture selling out. We agreed that this was counterproductive as it benefitted no-one if there were empty seats in the stadium because, for instance, season ticket holders that had signed up to the cup guarantee scheme couldn’t make a game that had been scheduled for a time that was problematic for many. So, when we were again drawn at home against Man City in the 4th round (and with a similar Friday evening kick-off) we lobbied the Club to open Exchange/Share for that game. We were pleased that the Club agreed to open Exchange for ST holders on the cup guarantee scheme but the Club cited potential problems with the transfer of ‘free’ tickets included in the £50 family package as preventing them from opening Share. We consider that the family offer is important to give younger fans an opportunity to see their team. This issue will not arise again till next season now for reasons we won’t dwell upon but will look to work with the Club to devise a work around to increase flexibility for future cup games.
Fan Advisory Board
THST have two representatives on the Tottenham Hotspur Fan Advisory Board, Steve Cavalier and Rachel Martin. The FAB meets four times a year and the minutes of the discussions are shared on the Club’s website.
The remit of the FAB includes non-playing matters, including:
- The Club’s strategic vision and objectives
- Off-pitch performance updates, priorities and plans
- Operational matchday issues
- Proposals relating to significant changes to Club heritage assets
- Stadium issues and plans
- The Club’s community strategy
- The Club’s equality, diversity and inclusion commitments
- The Club’s plan for broader supporter engagement
The next meeting will be on 19 February. The agenda and minutes will be shared, once they have been set. Previous minutes can be found here.
THST quiz night
The annual Quiz Night will be held on Wednesday 17 April at The Antwerp Arms. Pop it in your diaries for now and we’ll give you more information soon. It’s always a really great night and we are looking forward to seeing lots of friends, old and new.
Get involved
This month on the Forum we’ve been discussing: Ticketing for the FA Cup fixture against Man City (the opening of Ticket Exchange for season ticket holders but not Ticket Share), the perils of travelling home via White Hart Lane Station after matches, questions for the Spurs Journalists, Joe Lewis and the ownership structure at Spurs, the Spurs trumpeter and the THST AGM.
The THST Forum is open to full and life members of the Trust. Full and life members should apply via the link on our website and set up an account. We should emphasise Trust membership alone doesn’t give you automatic access to the Forum, you need to register via the link. Don’t forget – full members can start threads of their own so have a think about which off-field issues you would like to discuss.
To join the Trust, please register here. Whilst everyone who works with the Trust is a volunteer, we do have some costs and would encourage people to upgrade from free Associate Membership to Full membership if you can – here.