With regard to the catering/bars/function rooms at the Shay, I recently had a 60th Birthday Party and initially wanted to hold it at the Shay. I was shown the function rooms which were brilliant but then discussed costs. I could have use of the room for nothing but had to use their caterers, using my own was not an option. Cheapest option? Pie and peas at £7+ per head. I was anticipating 100 people so that would be over £700 to give them pie & peas! Needless to say I went elsewhere.
I was not happy when EMC first got the contract as I didn't see why we could not keep it local. With pubs struggling to stay in business and closing down at an alarming rate, I am sure it would not be difficult to find a local landlord who would have been willing to run the bars and catering. One idea I had was that they could sell drinks, for example, at normal pub prices plus 15%. Out of that 15%, a third could go to the landlord, a third to the council and a third to the club (either HRLFC or FCHT depending on who is playing).
This is only off the top of my head and is open to tweaking but means that the council gets a return on it's investment, the landlord gets a nice little earner from a sizeable and regular captive audience and the clubs get some income which increases if their crowds increase so is a marketing incentive. I'm sure that most fans wouldn't mind paying a little over the odds if they could see the clubs benefitting rather than some faceless corporation.
