List of suggestions

[23081986]

I know DCFC is not responsible for this but maybe a request/suggestion coming from the club would be more likely to be listened to by the City Council than from an ordinary member of the public. All of the lamp posts, railings, signs, litter bins etc. in Pride Park are red and white. It would be better if these are all painted black and white. Maybe there could be new signs as well, positioned at the entrances to Pride Park saying something like "Welcome to Pride Park. Home of Derby County FC." The black and white theme could also possibly be incorporated in the Castleward redevelopment so Derby is black and white all the way from the city centre to the ground.

 

Other suggestions:

Get rid of fan cam.

Make sure kids reading the teams out is never brought back.

Show the team news continuously on the concourse tvs so you can go straight in, check the teams and go to your seat.

The queues for food and drink at half time are too big at the moment. Get more bar staff and get them to start pouring the drinks before half time. Look at other ways that queueing time can be reduced.

Have more choice of beer in the concourses/ McFarland's Bar; real ales, wheat beer etc.

Keep the concourses - food/drink outlets open after the match like they do at Brighton. Likewise with the Fan Zone, if this is not already being done. Have a food van inside the Fan Zone. Look at other ways of improving the Fan Zone, like having a band. Maybe it could inspire some new chants! I think I read somewhere that Man City do this.

Make more of our history. The club was formed in a meeting of the cricket club members at the The Bell Hotel in Sadler Gate, which is currently being done up. Maybe have a plaque put up and show some memorabilia there. I think the owner is a Rams fan. We could also include the original colours (brown, blue and amber) from the cricket club a bit more. The centenary shirt had these colours in a diagonal stripe and I always thought that it looked really good. Maybe these colours could be used as a trim on the home kit.

Open a DCFC museum.

Have an area of an unreserved seating. Sell a certain percentage of these seats as season tickets and keep the rest for a match by match basis and/or pay on the gate, first come first served. A season ticket/match ticket bought in advance would guarantee the holder a seat in that section but would not guarantee a specific seat. This would allow season ticket holders to sit with friends who are not season ticket holders without the need to swap their season ticket seat for another seat. It would also allow more flexibility; eg 2 mates want to go to the match but their other mates are not sure. First 2 mates can buy their tickets and then if any of the others decide later that they want to go they can still all sit together. It would also encourage people to get to their seat early in order to get a good seat and this should help the atmosphere to build up.

Lobby for safe standing.

Improve the club shop/merchandise as the current offering is poor. For example, I wanted a simple black and white scarf but the shop didn’t stock them. I finally managed to get one towards the end of last season but it was so short that it would hardly tie up.

Re-open a club shop/ticket office in the city centre.

We have a great fan base but like everything else at the club, it can be improved. The club could actively try to increase the size of our fanbase by continuing to give away tickets to schools, clubs, the university etc to bring new fans to the club. When I was a kid the club used to send out youth players to local schools to help run the occasional training session. I'm not sure if this is still done but it’s a good idea and helps to build a bond between the club and potential new supporters. If (when!) we go up, the club should seriously look at extending the ground. We will sell out several matches and potentially be turning away new fans. We don’t need to go mad and end up with a ground that is too big, but I think that we could possibly support around 5,000 extra seats. That would still leave us with a capacity smaller than our record attendance. Extending could also provide an opportunity to improve facilities in the concourses, incorporate a bigger club shop, museum and have additional members' bars like McFarland's Bar.

Strengthen ties with existing fans. Maybe the club could help to run buses from other areas, working with supporters' clubs representing our fans in other parts of the Midlands and further afield. This might help fans living further away to get to more matches as travel costs are a big disincentive if you live far away. The fans forums are an excellent idea. I wanted to go to the one in London but was unable to get a ticket due to demand exceeding supply. I was talking to one of the fellas from Punjabi Rams and I was shocked at how many people they had to turn down so we obviously have quite a few fans in the south.

Get the Plaza development outside the ground done. This would enable more people to have a drink near the ground, making it more like it used to be at the Baseball Ground.

Make this suggestion thread or something similar that allows fans to communicate ideas to the club a permanent feature.