Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the Garaboldy Red podcast. Do hope you're well. I'm Max As your host, and it hasn't been a great week for Forest off the pitch, has it? With new season ticket prices being announced, and certainly a fan response to that. 24% increase across all season tickets with most expensive season ticket pricing at £850. That's up from 660 from the 2023 to '24 season. The youth age bracket goes from 14 to 17-year-olds, meaning an 18-year-old goes from £195 to £700, if not a little bit more in some areas of the ground. That's the bracket I fall in and we'll have to pay next next season, and it's not been a good week in terms of the response to Forest fans. Joining us to discuss that and lots more is the Chair of the Nottingham Forest Supporters Trust, Andy Kiddell. Andy, thanks for joining us today. Really appreciate your time. First of all, how are you And I can imagine it's been a mad week for you on all sorts of media appearances and things like that talking about this.

Yeah, I'm fine, thank you. And thanks for asking. When I got involved with the Supporters Trust right at the beginning, actually, I never expected. I might be on the telly and on national radio and so on without any media training to help me do that. So yeah, it's been interesting, but you try to give a voice to what some fans think. There always has to be some spokesperson person for the fans, and I tried to do my best to not reflect just my views, but reflect the views of the people we represent at the Supporters Trust.

Yes, definitely. Let's start with the Trust's statements on this, and I don't want to read it fully because we might be here a while as you can imagine. I do recommend Forest fans do read the statement and obviously members and things like that. But can you just give us almost a bit of a brief summary, Andy, of your statements, the conversations that you guys had on the board to put this statement out, and just really your thoughts on this news this week with the season ticket prices increasing?

Yeah, of course. Before I talk about that, what I do want to say first out is that I think everybody absolutely understands what a great job the current ownership has done for the club. Mr. Marenackis and Mr. Comenack has been hugely generous owners. I could say benefactors could need the amount of money that has been committed, which they've underwritten, of course, into the club and down to their stewardship of the club. We're currently in the Premier League. And so I'd like to just start by recording that, that people are deeply grateful for that. And there's nobody campaigning against the owners or anything here. However, this specific issue relating to the price increases we've seen is, in my view, completely unacceptable. And I think it's been handled really badly by the club. And I'm surprised because I think they haven't made this mistake, this error, previous, certainly not on this scale. And you've talked about the fan reaction. We've never seen anything like it. I haven't seen a single, not a single person anywhere supporting these rises, apart from a few jibes from the likes of Derby fans and so on, but elsewhere. So there's a few things to cover here, I think, Max.

The first one is the absolute increase in price that we've seen, and you've talked about it there, 24 %. Perhaps more important than the 24 % is the change in some of the concessions, what's happening with the age groups. And it's really stark, and it's been mentioned by you then previously, but some people... It's worth talking about, again, somebody of 18 years old sitting in the main stand or in those central areas was paying £190 last season and next season, they'll pay £850. That's an 18-year-old. 18-year-olds don't earn money, generally speaking. In fact, most 18-year-olds, by law, have to still be in education. It seems mad to me. And aren't these people our future? Wasn't it the case that there was a strategy from the club some time ago to try to encourage more and more people in? You and I have been going to the ground a long time. It didn't used to be full, did it? And the demographic in there was all day. It was 10 to a few people of my age and older was the modal type of fan in there. And now we see lots and lots of youngsters, especially away.

And those people, people like yourself, Max, and people of your age groups, are the future. They're going to be going. But how many 18-year-olds can afford £850 for their season card? I think for us, it's probably like a lot of clubs, a lot of season cards are concessions. It might even be the majority, I don't know, but there's certainly a very high number of season cards are concessions. And you can see it from the club's point of view, can't Rather than it being... Rather than somebody paying... What do you think the average price works out? I haven't done this. I probably should have done. Probably got £40 a head, something like that, even per game, something like that. Rather than me paying that £40, what if the club could, at some point in the future, sell that to a tourist type of fan for £150 or more, like they do in American sport? People going to New York for the weekend, want to take in a game, and they'll go and watch some baseball or American football or So I'm happily dropped 200 quid on that. You go to a lot of away matches. You've been to London Stadium.

What do you think about the atmosphere at West Ham?

It's quiet. It's actually empty.

It absolutely is. And yeah, they've got season card waiting lists at West Ham. They get 60,000 in there. If you've been to Upton Park in the past, there wasn't 60,000 people in there, was it? So it's been a successful model for them on a commercial point of view, but the stadium has suffered in terms of atmosphere, in my opinion. There are a a lot of times. Anyway, so that's the first thing, isn't it? It's the actual price and it's the change of the concessions, I'm putting it like that. But it's wider than that, I think the comms strategy behind what's going on has been deeply questionable. So we've had a lot of messages to the Trust from people, quite often older people, who are saying that they're having to I seriously consider now whether they can keep going to watch the club they watched in a few cases. And I mentioned this in other media appearances for more than 40 years. Can you imagine how important that is to these people? They've been going to watch their football club for 40 years, and then I won't be able to watch anymore. The attendant to that messaging around the season card pricing very shortly afterwards.

So it was a further announcement. It was like, whoa, look at us, aren't we? Look at this. We're really great, delighted to report the fact we've now got 11,000 people on our waiting list. And let's just put ourselves in the position of somebody who can't afford the price in the future. You're told it's okay because if you can't afford it, there's somebody just on that waiting list, you can, and they'll have you see some cars. Don't worry, it'll be fine. I just hope that it was an intentional Do you think it was unintentional?

And you touched on there, the comms strategy, Andy. And I can remember just a few days ago when this all came out and I thought, right, okay, the fan reaction hasn't I mean, great at all. And the club might sit quietly for a while. So then come out with not one, but two tweets that were very, well, we've got 11,000. It was almost like saying, well, we've got 11,000 season card on this waiting list. As you just said there, if you can't pay it, well, somebody else will. And then it also conflicted with the whole safe standing announcement, which just seemed like a poor communications.

I was going to come on to that. But the two things together. I mean, nobody's talking about safe standing, are they? Forster and others have been campaigning for that really successfully for ages. That should help contribute to an even better atmosphere in the state. And I'd like to come back to atmosphere in a minute because I I think that's a really important factor in what's going on here. So do I think they did it on purpose? It'd be so cynical, wouldn't it? I really hope not. But look, I work in communication. It's not in sport, in health care. I would have thought about it. You can't send that out straight after the other... You can't do that. What will people think? Oh, no, I didn't mean it. No, I know you didn't mean it. Don't do it. Don't send it out. Let's not say that. We saw the announcement some time ago about the fact it was going to be a waiting list, but then to tell people about how the waiting list was getting on. Again, now we've got 11,000. I know some of the people involved, there's clever, able, decent people who work in comms at the club.

So they're not mates. I've met with them a few times, but they're not good friends of mine. I couldn't say that I know their characters really well. I hope not, Max. Having met them, I certainly wouldn't have suspected half of them, but you tend to judge on actions, don't you? And certainly, there's a lot of people communicating with us and saying, That's cynical. They're doing that on purpose. That's what people are perceiving, and you can understand why they're perceiving it.

Yeah, you certainly can. I will also add, we are live on Facebook and YouTube. A lot of comments going to us, so what we'll do is we'll do a bit a Q&A section in a way at the end. So if you've got any questions for Andy on behalf of the supporters trust and anything that he is able to answer, then we will do that at the end. But wanted to touch on almost the dealings that you've had with the club, and I know you won't be able to go into too much detail on everything, Andy. But what dealings did you have beforehand? There is a fan advisory board. Was there any indication the club were going to put these prices Was there any idea you had that this was coming? And have you had any communication with them since this price increased this week?

Okay. So the Supporters Trust are one of... We have one representative on the FAB, Asif, my colleague from the Trust Board, and he chairs the FAB. And then there are seven other members of the FAB, as I'm sure your listeners probably know, but the major fan groups like Punj Forest, like Fawzia, Forest Disabled Supporters Association, Supporters Club, and North America. I think those people are all on it. Obviously, the North American one by would attend virtually. And then there's two independents. So eight people in total, and really chosen to try to represent a wide cohort of fans. And so the trust role in that is that what we try to do is we, before any of the meetings, is we give our members the opportunity to come back to us and we are led by them. It's not Asif's opinion when he's representing the Trust, it's the opinion of our members. And so what we did was we attended the FAB meeting to discuss ticket pricing. And there was a presentation from the club to the members of that FAB. And what the Trust did at that meeting was presented the results of our survey, which we had done amongst our members, but at wider fans as well.

And the overall just a top line of that, really, Max, was that most people accepted a price increase. It was not only inevitable, but it was also absolutely fine. It was acceptable. And the scale of the price increase was people were saying 5 %, that'd be great. In fact, we can well received. Up to 10 %? Okay, yeah, that would be all right. More than that was considered to be probably unacceptable. And we can perhaps talk about what these price increases mean in terms of actual revenue, increased revenue to the club. I'd like to come back to that in a minute if we can. So that was that. The club then had their own presentation to the FAB, and I think this is all minuted. I think your listeners and viewers can look this up. They made a presentation back, and I think there was like a benchmarking exercise and so on in there and talking about what price increases was going on elsewhere. And quite strongly, not just from the Trust, but from the other members, those other seven members, and it's important, everybody has an equal voice on the FAB. The feedback that the club got was this modest price increase would be okay.

We felt that the FAB felt that that's what the fans would accept. There was no indication at all from the club as to what the price increases would be, and there was certainly no hint that it would be on this scale. I understand that the FAB believed that they would be consulted again when the prices went out, but they weren't, and they were given very little notice indeed of the announcement it just went out. So Again, the interpretation here is that, can the FAB, at least in this area of pricing, can the FAB influence the club on pricing, or was it a tick box exercise? Did those people on the FAB, all of whom are volunteers, did they waste their time going to that meeting? Was the decision taken beforehand? I mean, I don't know, but everybody listening to this can take their own view on it. But given that the club were told what the view was about that wide cohort representative fans at that meeting, given the club were told that, and then we got the price increases we've seen, it has to be the case they weren't influenced. So why Why do they hold the meeting?

I don't know. Yeah, it's a very interesting one, and it's interesting with that Fun Advisory Board. And as you say, you can read those online. They are available to read. And you mentioned also Forza Garibaldi, who put a similar statement to the Trust out. Obviously separate, but Forza talked about withdrawing flags and things like that from the ground in almost protest against this price increase. Let's come back to a point you just mentioned, Andy, and you wanted to touch on was about the increase of profit for the club. There are time when Forrest have struggled this season with PSR, and we all know the outcome of that. Do you think there was the The Club have done this? I mean, of course, there'll be an increase in profit, but would there have been any, almost conversations had amongst the club, in your opinion, do you think, in terms of, well, actually, we're in this bit of a financial mess. We've got to get some more commercial revenue and ticket revenue in. So this is a good way to do it.

Yeah, possibly. But let's then look at the numbers, shall we? So there's been various interpretations as to how much extra revenue this will bring in. And the lowest I've seen is 2 million, and the highest I've seen is three. So let's say two and a half million pounds of extra revenue. And do you know what the difference between in terms of money is between each position in the Premier League, 16th against 17th, for example. And you know why I've said those two numbers. 3.2 million pounds. So a 16th rather than 17th, we get an extra 3.2 million pounds of revenue. A front of shirt sponsorship. Last year, the rumors were we were offered five £5 million. I went to put my cards on the table. I was really proud of our club and Mr. Marenake's decision to say, right, we've asked for whatever it was they asked for. And of course, I don't know that. But to say, no, we're going to promote good publicity to UNHCR instead, I thought it was tremendous. But it was still people could legitimately say, well, it was maybe five or six million that was offered that was declined for the reasons I just mentioned.

So that would be two years worth of these price increases. The media revenue, about £130 million. These numbers aren't big, at least not in one year. And that's my concern, Max. We've seen this one year of price increases. Will we get the same next year, another two and a half, and the next year after that, and so on and so on? Is this an indication of the direction of travel in football pricing? How are we going to see the end of the legacy fan? And I I've used that horrible term elsewhere in one of the other interviews I've done. People who've been going a long time and can't afford these prices is football. Football is changing, isn't it? You start off being a working man's game and so on, and I've been going to football for a long time and it's changed. And actually a lot of it's changed to the better. You see much more diverse mix of people, and that's all a good thing. But the gentrification of it, I regret. It doesn't to some degree. Listen, it's a commercial world, and there is a direction of travel, and it can't be completely stopped.

And There are, however, better ways of doing it than the way in which we've done. Our price is going to stay really low forever. No, of course not. There's massive demand. I mean, if I was running the club, I'd say, Well, hold on a minute. We've got loads of people prepared to pay a lot more money here. But I hope I would also say, Yeah, but these 24 % price increases overnight in one season, why don't we instead say, right, let's consult widely with the FAB and whoever else it might be and say, listen, fellows, We need to get more revenue from tickets, from ticket pricing. And this is where we'd like to be. We'd like to be modal, somewhere within the middle. I'll come back to that in a minute because I think the benchmarking needs some careful full thought, but come back to that. So in five years time, we need to be there. So can we agree a strategy of how we get there? And by the way, whilst we're doing that, you're going to be spending more money for your ticket, but you're going to be getting more stuff. This is what we're doing with the stadium.

This is what we're doing with the facilities. This is what we're doing with the hot water in the main stand and the hot water in the Brian Clough. We're going to have some toilet. I'm not being facetious here, but some of these price increases for the facilities that we see at our wonderful ground, which I love, and And it's honestly my favorite football ground. Here's another point. It's not just my favorite football grounds. Nick Randall told me some time ago when he was still chair last season, he told me that the people who he meets on match day, not his equivalence, the chair and the senior people of the clubs we were playing, almost without exception, all of them were marveling, marveling at the atmosphere at city ground, that febrile atmosphere that we generate in that ground. And there's so many things, so I'm going a bit all over the place on this, but there's so many things about that atmosphere, isn't it? We've generated it. Isn't it the case that the atmosphere that we generate at our grounds here in this country, isn't that one of the reasons why the Premier League has been incredibly successful and foreign businessmen like Mr.

Marenackis and the rest of the people who bought into English football clubs and even Nation States buying football clubs? Why did they do it? Well, there was something really attractive about it, wasn't it? There was something exciting about it. If you've ever been to sport in America, it's very different. I've been to American football games in New Jersey, basketball, and the rest. Hockey, ice hockey is a bit more noisy there, but American football game, you see this great game going on over here, now it's okay. Hey, can Can I get a beer? It's so different. I just regret, and I wonder whether or not at some point in the future, if this isn't attended to really carefully, we might find ourselves in a position we look back and go, You know what? We've spoiled this a bit. We've lost something.

Yeah, and it's interesting. And you just wonder sometimes, Andy, and I'm talking more from a fan's point of view here, but the fans sing that Forrester Magic on and off the pitch And there's that whole... I don't know if there'll be many chance of that on Sunday, but there's that whole city ground atmosphere. And as Steve Cooper alluded to previously, it oozes football soul, the city ground. And by doing something like this by pricing out Forest fans, fans that, as you have mentioned, have been going for 40 years. I've seen tweets on Twitter from people that are having to choose whether their son or daughter goes next year, and that's the position we're in. It's just so sad to see it, and it will really drag the football soul out of the city ground.

So here's perhaps a hyperbolic statement for you. Could it be the case that this decision and the timing of it, and a month before the end of the season, oh, by the way, one month, and you know what that means? One payday to find up to £850 for a lot of people. Has everybody got that money to drop before the next payday or at the next payday? It's a great deal of money. So anyway, here's my hyperbolic statement. Could this decision be an important factor in Forrest being relegated? Why did Forrest get 30 points out of our 38 points last season at home? Why do you think that was? Well, I just said to you about what nick said to me about the febrile atmosphere that other clubs, these owners and these directors of other clubs who've been going around football for years and years and years. They come to the Forest Ground, to the City Ground for the first time in some of their cases ever. And they're going, what you got here is pretty special. The atmosphere, and for the players' point of view as well. Players on the pitch thinking, wow, we don't get this cacophony of noise.

We don't get this in many places, the intimidation of it. That's why we got 30 points. Our fans kept us up. Eleven fellows on the pitch are turning red shirts and the goalkeeper in blue or yellow, whatever he was writing at the time. They kept us up as well. So did the coach, Steve Cooper last year. And Nuno's this year doing his very best, his level best to keep us up. The fans, the fans. Everybody says it brings some noise Say, Nottingham Forest to us, their fans, bring some noise. What about now if people are thinking a bit disappointed? It's been some talk, hasn't it? Not singing Mullet of Kintyre against City. Maybe against City, there's not anything you could sing to win. But what about Chelsea? They're more vulnerable. We could beat them, maybe. Actually, we got a point off City last year. Maybe they are be taken off the ball now. They were knocked out of Europe last night. Who knows? But I tell you what, unless atmospheric city grand is not going to be positive for our club, what if we don't... It's a bit of a hyperbolic statement, as I've said, but I do think it's So it's a really, really important issue.

And as I say, I'm surprised at the club. I mentioned benchmarking. Can I just talk about that? Yeah, of course. So benchmarking, I think the statement came out from the club that the club's intention was to keep our pressing competitive, something like that, or alongside other clubs in the Premier League, seven of them in London. Fulham, Chelsea, places like that. We can't compare with that. The fans who go to these clubs, they're a different type of fan to the average Forest fan. I had a meeting the other day about something with the Community Trust, with Callum and Karen at Community Trust, alongside a colleague of mine from the Trust. It was quite an exciting initiative we might be doing some point and news on that to come in the future. But I can't remember if it was Callum or Karen who talked about some of the wards in Notts in the area, where the Community Trust do some brilliant work. Maybe the listeners aren't aware of them. You should look them at. And you have Nottingham Forest Community Trust, a wonderful, wonderful organization. And by the way, very importantly, really generously supported by our owner, Mr.

Marinal, because he's got a lot of money into it. And he's done the same thing in Olympiacos. He's really keen on helping The community in the area. But what Callum and Karen were talking about was how disadvantaged some of the wards in Nottingham are, and compared to the whole of the rest of the country. We are not an economic powerhouse across the whole of Nottingham. Not everybody lives in posh parts of town and so on. A lot of people who go to the football club don't have a huge amount of money. For my season card, Max went up from £550 to £700, and my wife did too. Rebecca and I sitting obviously together. What a surprise, at the ground. And it's gone £550 to £700. I'm in a very, very fortunate position to be able to afford that. Lots of people, that's another £150 to find... It's tricky for them. We have a different fan base to many others. And so when you're doing a benchmarking exercise, you need to benchmark to equivalent clubs. And when you do that, these price increases do not necessarily put us in the middle. They're towards the top then.

And I'll tell you one more thing, if we get relegated, and I think the bookmakers have got us something like two to one against, I think, 8 to 13. Some people might say it's a bit closer than that. But if we get relegated, there's no mention at all of whether or not these price increases will stay the same. In fact, because there's no mention, you have to assume they will stay the same. Where does that put us then? Does that put us competitive in the Championship? No, of course it doesn't. We'd be right at the top end. And I wonder how many people on that 11,000 waiting list would actually go ahead and buy a season card at that price to watch Championship football at the City Ground. I suspect it be rather fewer than the club might expect. So overall, I think it's been an alarming development and I think really badly handled by the club, sadly. Frankly, under this ownership, by some degree, the worst thing that's happened for them, I think, I think they'll be quite surprised at it. And I sincerely hope that they take some action to show what I actually believe that they really do care about the fans.

I do think they do care about opinions and so on, and perhaps they've just miscalculated. I hope so. Yeah.

I understand you might not be able to go into this too much, Andy, but have you had any indications or response to the statement and to the news from Forest, the club itself? Have you simply had any dealings with the chairman or with any representative from Nottingham Forest this week?

The main consultative body for the club now with fans is the FAB. And again, if your listeners aren't aware, Premier League clubs have to have fan advisory boards. It's a requirement. Is the Premier League decided upon that. Some people are interpreting So I'm seeing that as their means of avoiding government regulation, insisting on upon fan representation. There was some speculation at some point that the government could act to say, you have to have a fan representative on your board, and the vast majority of football clubs wouldn't want that. But anyway, FABs are the main way to consult. So I've met with Tom on a few other things, but not about this, and it's not entirely appropriate. I only represent the supporters Trust when I'm at the club, not the wider group. And it's really, really important that there's a wider group of fans that are represented. So the answer is, is the FAB have asked for a meet with the club, and that is happening. And there's no agenda to it or anything yet, but that is happening. And I believe there will be a statement from the FAB about that pretty imminently, having had the meeting.

Okay, interesting. And so do you think in that meeting, is that Tom Cartilage, the Forest Chairman, just him, or will there be other representatives?

There will be other representatives. Obviously, it will be Tom. He's the chair, and that's his role. There'll be other senior people at the club as well. And not the Oversea. Clearly, you never meet with the Oversea. That's no issue at all. That's not appropriate. We have a UK executive board, and those are the appropriate people to meet with. So yeah, it's Tom and others.

Yeah. I wanted to touch on Tom, and it was a positive move when he was appointed chairman. This is a man that's a lifelong Forest fan from Nottingham. He's been involved with the club in terms of the whole ground redevelopment for a few years. He knows Mr. Marenack as well. It's a very sensible appointment. As you can imagine, lots of criticism to him from fans. I can remember when he first took over, he said in a statement that he basically wanted to keep Forest affordable. He talked about how he was sneaked in as a young fan under his jacket, under his dad's jacket. What's your dealings been like with Tom since he's taken over as chairman? And I suppose not trying to take this off on a tangent too much in terms of ground redevelopment, but this is a man that you'd surely think would, if he's partly responsible for the ticket prices, that he would have really thought quite deeply about it, considering his statement just a few weeks ago.

Yeah. Well, I met with him a few times, and some of your listeners and viewers will have seen the Q&A that we did with him. And I was really impressed. He was a really warm, nice, friendly guy. Different character to nick Randall, but clearly a successful fellow. He was CEO of one of Nott's most important businesses. It's a family business, and they're a proper big international company. So he's clearly an extremely able fellow. Let's remember one thing, though. Tom Cartlidge doesn't own Nothing Forest, and he's not any of it at all, actually. He's the chairman, and I think he's probably... He's very much CEO of his own business, and therefore it might be a bit difficult for him not to actually behave a bit as a CEO as well at Forest. And those two roles are usually separated. Certainly most UK businesses, they would be separated. So we're maybe covering both roles. I don't know. But ultimately, my point here is that he doesn't own the club, and It's owned by Mr. Marenack is 80 % and Mr. Comenack is 20 %. That's who owns it. And we all go there and we feel it's our club.

We talk about our club and this and that, the other. But it isn't. Not legally. It's not our club in that regard. It's their club, those two successful businessmen. And then I said, right at the beginning of this chat, what I feel about what they've done, we're in the Premier League and it's down to them, largely speaking. They took over, they rescued us actually from the previous ownership, which I'm I don't need to go into that at the minute. But they rescued us. And the direction of travel has been pretty up, stepped up and up and up ever since under their stewardship. Our point here is that it's likely, I think, I don't know this, but I think it's surely likely that the ultimate decision on the pricing here is taken by the ownership group. I'm not necessarily Mr. Marenackis himself is looking for spreadsheets and so on, but he'll have people around him. And I'd imagine that's probably where it was. And it made the case, therefore, that it's been passed to Tom and to his senior leadership team in the UK to just deliver it. Maybe he was passed. I don't know. I'm guessing.

But yeah, I I do think he's a... I think he clearly know he's a proper fan, man and boy, home and away. He's a proper supporter of the club. And I think you're right. He has talked about the need to keep it affordable, but ultimately, maybe it's not his decision. But then again, he is the chair. And so you'd imagine he'd surely have some influence. I don't know. And I can't speak as to what his view is I wasn't at the meeting when the FAB talked about the pricing, so I can't interpret really that. And the FAB, by the way, they are under confidentiality concerns. So although we get a report back from Asif, our representative on that, then some of it does have to stay internal to that in much the same way as we've done in the past when we've met. And we could have trusted with the main body to talk to the club last year about price increases. And so we got quite a bit of inside confidentiality confidential information at the time. And you obviously can't share deeply confidential information because you'll never get consulted again. But you always do try to represent the interests of the fans.

And we've come under some criticism over the years from people who perhaps don't know better thinking we We're patsies to the club and so on. It's not true, we're not. We never have been. But you do sometimes have to behave in a responsible fashion, which means not sharing confidentiality. So I won't be as aware of Tom's stewardship of this as Asif would be.

Yeah, I will also add as well, just for listeners and viewers, that there is another senior official that joined Forest recently in terms of Paul Bell, who I think his role is Chief Operating Officer. He was from Leeds United and was largely responsible there for ticketing.

Paul, sorry for interrupting. It's all right now. I should have mentioned actually Paul made a presentation to the FAB around pricing. But as I said, that presentation did not include information on proposed price increases. But yeah, you're right. That's worth mentioning. Paul has led this.

Yes. Interesting there. Right. Let's just do a bit of a quick Q&A just from some questions, just going to pick out three or four here. It's a bit wary of time, and then we will finish with just final thoughts. This question, Andy, first from Lewis, say, God forbid, if we go down, will these prices stick? I think that's probably a question on a lot of Forest fans at the minute. Do you think that Forest will stick with these prices if Forest got relegated?

I can't understand why they wouldn't have mentioned. I suppose it might sound negative. Certainly, I think Mr. Maranate doesn't ever want to talk or think about relegation. It's not on his agenda at all. So it could be that. It could be that. They just thought, I'm not mentioning it. And so if we were relegated, maybe there is a a different line. I don't know, but it hasn't been in the announcement. And so if I was a betting, man, that old million pound drop, where did you put your money? Do you put all your million on? I think I might go. If I still have the million, I think I'd go 600,000, they'll stay the same, and 400,000. So maybe they're not quite... 60, 40, I think they stay the same.

Yeah. Another one here from Twitter, which is asked by someone named Tom, who asks, Andy, as the Forest Supporters Trust, will you be up for having conversations with the club in the summer in terms of if they decided to basically decrease the prices again? I'm guessing the answer to that would be yes.

Yeah, definitely. It wouldn't just be the Forest Supporters Trust, it would be the FAB, but very, very strongly, our view is that the prices are not right for the reasons we talked about the last half an hour. And we absolutely would ask for reductions, changes to the concession, of those concession changes. There's a number of, I'm not going to say demands, that's perhaps too strong. You can't demand, can you? Requests that we have of the club. We accept a price increase, we just don't think this one is appropriate or fair.

And this one from Anne, which says, Will those 11,000 people on the wanting list simply want to pay these prices? I understand that's a bit of a difficult question for you to answer, Andy, but the club did say that there was 11,000 people on the waiting lists.

I touched on it, but how about if some of those 11,000 people were the people who don't live in Nottingham and think, I'm 550 pounds, or let's go up to 600 pounds for a season ticket. I go up to Nottingham six times a year to see family. It's a lot of money, but I don't know. My feeling is certainly of all the 11,000, definitely not. Definitely not all of them would want to pay the new prices, but I suspect a big enough number would. So let's say we lose 500 or a thousand legacy fans because of these price increases. Might not be that high, but all of those, if they go on sale again, then I think all of those would be taken up.

Yeah. And one just finally from Twitter, because I'm going to try and mix it up with people on different social media platforms on Twitter or X. James says, The Forest Supporters Trust has been criticized a lot recently, but is this a sign of the times that the club is dealing with the trust and vice versa? And what role does the Trust ultimately play to do with the club?

That's a really good question. I'm going to defend the Trust. You're making me surprised to hear that, aren't you? We've been criticized, but I think not always being criticized by people are really informed as to what we do. So we have never been the voice of the club. We've never been intimidated by the club. We consult with the club and we've tried to persuade and to influence and sometimes to inform the club on behalf of our members. Not all members. We don't try to pretend that we represent people who aren't members of the Trust. So I'm going to defend us. I'm not going to list a whole list of achievements now, but go on our website, nffctrust. Org, a bit of promotion there, and have a look at some of the stuff we've done. I'm really proud of a lot of the things that we've done as an organization We have a decent relationship with the club that I have had. And have we got everything right? No, not at all. But we're volunteers and we try to do our best. Now, we now have to find a role for the Trust alongside the FAB.

So the FAB will be the primary way the club consult going forward, and that's absolutely fine. We have no issue with that whatsoever. Where we will position ourselves is that compared to the other representatives on the FAB, not all of them are the structure that we have, which allows our members to speak to us about what they want. So we do surveys. There will be a new survey coming out very soon, quite comprehensive one, to to members. I think we might even make it wider than that. I'm really, really keen for people to respond to that. We will then use that information to inform what we talk to the club about. So if you want to have your voice brought to the club, then the Trust is a a good way to do that. Not necessarily all those other organizations I've talked about. They don't all necessarily represent their members in the same way that we do. No criticism at all, by the way. I've said, I hope, repeatedly throughout this interview that I really believe and support wide representation of fans. But for the trust, that's what I can speak for. If you want a view with the club, then you can talk to us about it.

We'll take it. Even on an individual level. We've done that on many, many occasions, picked up individual issues for people with senior people at the club and got a resolution to things. We will also be finding a role for ourselves in a few other areas. I'm going to touch upon very briefly the PSR appeal. We'll be putting an announcement probably early next week about our submission to the appeals board. I'd urge your viewers and listeners to have a look at that and then judge us based on that. And so we hope that we'll have a positive influence on that appeals board, who knows whether we will or not. But go and have a read of it when it comes out. We'll put it out after the appeal board decision. And have your own interpretation of what the Forest Supporters Trust does when you see that. I'm extremely proud of it. There's a whole load of other things that we do as well around promoting diversity. We are really keen at making sure that female forest fans get their voices heard, and we have a few initiatives around that. We have a meeting with the chairman lined up for a group of female Forest fans to hear what they have to say and the whole other areas as well.

We will work alongside the FAB, not instead of.

Got you. Good stuff. And just finally, Andy, and on a bit of a lighter note, as a fan, as a fan's point of view, big game against Everton on Sunday, the remaining Cup finals, just people are talking about. You're confident that Forrest are going to stay up?

Confident. I think we will, but we did have to hesitate before going there. I'm going to Everton and I watched the Chelsea game against Everton and okay, they got battered and they 6-0, and yeah, great, 6-0. But I watched it and I I thought, they're a nightmare for us to play against. Look at the size of those fellows for all those set pieces. Look at their aggression. Look at how pushing and shoving. They all seem to be 6 foot 4, don't they? Although I think Branthway got injured, didn't he? I don't know if he was back for Sunday. Sincerely, he hoped not. What is it? What is it? Tarkovski, he's a really good player, but he's been around, but he knows what he's doing. They're a bit of a nightmare team for us to play against, I think. And they're not really... We haven't really had an issue Everton over the years. I like Everton as a team, as a club. Well, no, not particularly as a team. As a club, the support is all that. Goodison Park, wonderful stadium. But yeah, I don't know. I think two more wins maybe might do it, might they?

And with any luck, when we play Chef United and Burnley away, those two, do professional players really, really put it all in when it's gone, when they're down? I don't Is it 100 %? Maybe not. Maybe 95. We should have enough, shouldn't we? We should have enough to stay up. So I'll do my million pound drop again, Matt. So I'm going to go 750 on us staying up. I think I'll have 250 on us going down because I could then spend that to make myself feel better whilst I'm watching this in the Championship. I'll still be home and away.

You'll have to spend it on the season ticket.

A bit of change, wouldn't I?

Right. Thank you. I think that does us nicely. Andy, really appreciate your time today. And as you mentioned, any members interested, well, any listeners and viewers interested to hear more about becoming a member of the Forest Supporters Trust, it's nffctrust. Org as well as NFFCTrust on social media platforms. Really appreciate your time, Andy. Fingers crossed Forest bounce back this weekend on the pitch and off the pitch. We will wait and see what happens. Thanks for all your comments as well today. Do leave us a like, share, and subscribe on YouTube, and leave us a review on Spotify and Apple podcast. We will see you next time. Thank you, as always, for listening to Garabaldi Red, and have a wonderful weekend. Bye-bye.