Following our end of season review, we can confirm the launch of an exciting, new club magazine that will evolve our current matchday programme.
With the 2022/23 season ending, we were able to conduct a thorough review across many aspects of the football club, one of which being our matchday programme.
Due to the year-on-year financial loss that the programme incurs and the low sales numbers across the season, we have taken the decision to evolve the matchday programme going in to the 2023/24 campaign. The traditional matchday programme will now be replaced with a monthly magazine which will launch later in 2023.
The concept of a monthly magazine will reduce the costs and losses that the club faces on the programme and will allow us to better develop the content produced for our supporters. Within our new monthly magazine, we will have the ability to create more in-depth editorial features and stories that will be more engaging for our supporters. This will also allow us to more comprehensively cover and inform on all aspects of the club from 1st team, events, commercial, academy and community activities.
Although we will be moving to a more ‘club based’ publication, football and the on-pitch will continue to anchor the content within. Physical copies of the new monthly magazine will be available to purchase from the club shop and on matchday, as well as being available on a seasonal standing order.
Current Programme Editor, Derek Quinn, a loyal volunteer of the club, will move to the new voluntary role of Editorial Co-ordinator, working under the Head of Media & Communications in a more aligned and focused relationship with the club.
On this news, Head of Media & Communications, Dale Pryde-MacDonald said, “We have conducted a thorough review into the matchday programme and in the process, I have consulted with Derek Quinn around the operational challenges of producing the programme- which has now led us to this decision. It is our collective belief that we can better serve our supporters with a product which gives everybody a more in-depth insight to the football club where our resources and people are at the fore.”
“We could not sustain the losses the programme was incurring, and time taken to produce each copy. We also have to find the balance between cost cutting on production and the quality of the product that is being produced which is why we felt it necessary to take this decision. This is an exciting new chapter for us, and we can’t wait to get to work on the first edition.”
“It is fantastic that Derek Quinn will assume his new voluntary role. Derek has been a great support to me since joining as well as giving me some great insight in to his long, established journey with the football club and it was very important to me that we made sure we retained Derek and his skillset for the benefit of the football club.”