Ian Mather CEO
Welcome to Swindon Town, who come to the Abbey hot on the heels of a strong away 1-3 win against Scunthorpe on Saturday. This time last year we kicked off our season with a first round tie in the Carabao Cup against Birmingham City. To the surprise of many we won as we were tipped as candidates for relegation by many pundits. How could we possibly beat a team in the Championship? It was clearly not the first time the pundits were wrong last season… Our game on Saturday was the first time we had away fans for over 17 months and saw the largest crowd at the Abbey since we played Plymouth in April 2016. Our attendance of 6,444 was well above our League 2 average, pre Covid, of 4,300. The cheering, enthusiasm and sheer joy has been missing for too long. As we gear up to having large crowds there are some areas where improvements can be made and it was helpful of CUSP to pull together feedback for us to work on. Some of the points raised were already in our thinking, for example the opening of all of the tea bars. We are working along with our new caterers to make this happen. We are also working on a new Chip/ Pin payment
system to speed up all transactions to reduce queues. At games where we have spare capacity we are going to open the South Habbin for fans from the North Habbin to move into if they wish to give everyone more space. This will be done for the game against Burton Albion. We won’t be able to do this for every game as on some occasions we will be able to sell out the stand to away teams and so generate significant revenue for the club. More often than not though this space will be open for our own fans. Many noticed that the scoreboard at the NRE was not working. This was due to a cable failure and should be resolved very soon. It is no reflection on the quality of the scoreboard which, when working, is very good. A few have commented on the sound system. We will adjust the volumes and we are exploring how we could make this better overall. Our aim is to make the fan experience as good as it can be, within the bounds of finance and working with an aged, and much loved Abbey. Please do keep giving us feedback. For now though, cheer for the U’s and enjoy the game. ■ www.cambridge-united.co.uk
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