Rob’s new year message
Difficult to argue with the achievements on and off the field that Rob details. Our club is light years away from where we were before he came along. A foundation that will hopefully see us build for the future.
Interesting to see we are ditching ifollow. Always assumed we had to have it. I sincerely hope it’s replacement is less glitchy. The Spurs FA cup game last season used an infinitely better streaming experience.
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From memory I think there is about 10-15 clubs that don’t use it
Shame we can’t all see the message
Couldn’t find it on official website (although there is a long spiel about monthly subscription club membership and Ben Brown, the Ticketing Concierge.)
To our season ticket holders and subscribers,
Happy New Year!
Thank you for being a Wanderer. Your support literally allows the club to exist.
I think it’s fair to say that the past year has been one of great ups and downs on and off the pitch.
Two years ago, few believed we would begin 2021 playing in the Championship. Even fewer would have believed that during 2021, our play would result in a point accumulation in the top half of the division, or that over the last six matches, our points gained would be in the top six.
Nonetheless, because we started the year with a significant deficit, we were relegated by a mere point. (Let’s try to forget the referee wrongly calling back Daryl Horgan’s great goal against Derby or, for the moment, Derby’s other transgressions.)
This season, in what is surely the toughest League 1 in a generation, we have been one of the top teams in the division. It is certainly reasonable to believe we will be playing in the Championship next year.
When we began our development squad, few understood our approach. Today, we have had several of those players consistently start in the first team and even more play significant minutes for us as we battle our way back to the Championship.
In the past year, we have been able to completely remake our training ground. The fields are well tended. There is a new first team changing room and showers, a changing room and showers for the development squad , the first ever changing room and showers for our coaching staff, a rebuilt and expanded by 50% medical area with new equipment, new facilities for boots and kits, re-done coaches offices with a new dedicated area for our analysts (we now have three), fast Wi-Fi throughout the facility, and our new meeting and media building. Our players and visitors in this new year will see our commitment to Championship level facilities is more than words.
Last year saw the migration of our ticket system to NewC. We now have the best cloud-based ticket program in the EFL, including the Championship. This was done to enhance our ability to serve our supporters. We have plans for further enhancements during the coming year.
In fact, it has allowed us to put into place the first-of-its-kind subscription plan in the UK. Beginning today, we will be rolling out additional benefits for our members. We will also begin a month-long push to add new subscribers. We think you will find it exciting. The utilization of the subscription plan should allow us to achieve true year-round financial stability and let us properly plan for 2022 and beyond.
During the past year, we have turned Adams Park into the most technologically advanced stadium in the EFL. From the things you see (scoreboards, perimeter boards, TVs ), to hear (the best audio system available to enhance listening, and a separate one to provide safety), to use (our WiFi is literally among the very best of any facility in the UK), and those you can’t see but make your experience safer (new CCTV, phones, radios), every aspect was done to make your stadium not just better but best.
This year we will be leaving iFollow and the EFL-provided website. Instead, we will migrate to a new system controlled by the club and sensitive to your needs. No club in the Championship will have a better technological footprint or ability to communicate with its supporters. Soon, we will make an announcement that demonstrates our commitment to enhancing our media presence on TV and radio.
Last year saw a quantum leap forward in our relationship with the WorldWide Wycombe Phenomenon. From less than 10 countries represented, we now have over 70. We now have a unique relationship to a Spanish media.
And we are committed to better communication with you. In addition to my occasional emails, as a season ticket holder, you will receive updates from our media department. We have also added a member of the staff whose primary job is to assist you. Our new subscriber concierge will be not just be sending you information, he will be there to help you with any special request you might have. No one in the Championship has anything similar.
Of course, the Club had to deal with the myriad issues presented by Covid. They ranged from the important (the loss of friends and supporters), the frustrating (our fans not watching their club in the Championship), and those that made us proud (the Club’s use of the stadium for tens of thousands of vaccinations). I am confident that we leave 2021 behind with no good thoughts about this pernicious disease. I am just as confident that we face the New Year with great hope that was strengthened by all that was accomplished despite the obstacle that is this pandemic.
You may have noticed how often I mention the Championship. It is deliberate. That is the standard to which we hold ourselves.
As I look forward to next year, I feel a bit like the kid reading Dr. Seuss “Oh, The Places You Will Go” for the first time. It is truly exciting to be involved with this club. So many things are happening and we seem to be on the right course. I want to go over all of them with you but I need to leave a few things for later!
Missy, Pete, and I wish you the Happiest of New Years.
I am confident that this year, I will continue to be proud to say:
Yeah, I’m a Wanderer!
Rob Couhig
Chairman
Any other STHs not had this through yet?
Great positivity from Rob there, as we've come to expect. Easy to sometimes forget after an occasional sub-par game just how far we've come of late.
If leaving ifollow,how will we see the games?
Nothing said about bringing the toilets up to a reasonable standard though?
True, but it wasn't your bog standard New Year Message!
Yes, hopefully it doesn't mean live games are off? Surely couldn't be as that'd be a huge backwards step. Must be more our own version meaning we take all the money?
I hope the move to a different streaming platform isn't just for cost-cutting reasons. Whatever its faults, iFollow does provide a certain quality of service. I know in the Championship it was a requirement for four cameras, can't remember what it is in League One but I do remember that the iFollow provider IMG had to scale up provision last summer. I hope we wouldn't go back to the days of a single camera on the halfway line. After all, as the chairman likes to point out, he's thinking of us as Championship ready...
For all his talk of having the best ticketing service in the EFL, the customer experience of it has been shoddy. I'm worried that he's not experiencing what the customers are experiencing and just believing the hype of the service provider. I would hope that any new streaming system will be robustly tested before being introduced.
The bit that jumped out a little was the bit about preparing for "firsts" yet I believe talk of "firsts" was vetoed for the media team last year.
The online ticketing system is, er, not great. I can easily see why people would get confused by it.
Perhaps check your junk/clutter folders. Mine was there.
Got mine 9.13 am.
The ticketing system faltered to start with for sure. Stupid things like not being able to add your ticket to your phone wallet (iOS) was bizarre. It meant that screen shots were used by most and shared by some. I’ve been in a queue quite a few times where a young turnstile operator can’t get a beep from the barcode so just says ‘go on then’ being aware of a building queue. The addition to a wallet was introduced but not really announced. But I still think there is scope for abuse.
When I was buying Ipswich tickets, it didn't make it clear enough that it was an away game. Obviously I knew that - and you'd imagine most people buying would - but it could still be clearer. The UX needs some work.
At least the ticketing is much better than a few years ago, when I walked in for one game, showed a printed ticket and was amazed they didn't even have scanners in the turnstile, let alone actually scan them to make sure someone hadn't printed 100 off.
New station ? Wanderers TV ? Right next to the Man Utd and Liverpool ones on sky ! Pay a subscription and be able to watch any match home and away any day of the week....
Best wifi anywhere in the UK ? Try using it in the terrace some Saturdays
They won't get everything right straight away but it's a very impressive message from where we were a few years back. He sets a tone for his employees and is clearly working on the bigger picture. It will be for suppliers and individual staff to see it through but you can't say he isn't trying.
Expanding the media side to include web and streaming fits pretty well with what they are trying to achieve.
Moving to a bespoke digital media set-up is one of the best things they could have done
The new digital plans are certainly intriguing. I’ve got high hopes for it.
Except neither of those clubs can show their own games live as they're tied into the Sky/BT deals.
Presumably us having our own platform and binning ifollow off is allowed?
Unless it's for everything bar live games? But then would we miss out? It's interesting.
Rather he invested in the team to be honest.
He hasn't said he won't! Not that it needs much investment.
Really!
I wonder if the change of streaming platform will be accompanied by a move of the Press up to the FA on the same side as the TV cameras?
Will a new platform mean the end of the free content on the club’s you tube channel ?
This sounds good. The EFL template website is utter dog dirt.
Lots of clubs don’t operate with ifollow (our friends at Derby being one) and they still show all the usual live coverage.
I borrowed a DCFC login for our away game at Pride Park and it was great to see an in-studio discussion of the game at half-time as opposed to Geoff Doyle banging on about Nathan Jones. They’d got an ex-player and a journalist in - we’d have no trouble filling that up with our roster of on-mic talent.
I hope we can pinch Phil off the BBC. With a bit of luck that’s Rob’s forthcoming announcement.
I wouldn’t describe the ticketing system as above adequate, although it has improved. He’s right about the WiFi though - it’s without doubt the best public WiFi I’ve ever used.
Needs to sort the khazis out before giving ourselves too big a pat on the back IMO
Now after reading this it feels a lot more exciting a development