Quinssa Meet The Management Evening with Chairman David Morgan & CEO David Ellis
20 October 2011
The evening started with the two Davids being invited to introduce themselves.
David Morgan (DM): My association with Harlequins goes back to 1975 when I joined Quins and played for three ears in the 3rd and 4th teams. Then I had 30-odd years as a banker [much booing from the audience at this point] until I finished 8 years ago, at a time when the banks were still in perfect working order!
I had joined the Harlequins Old Players’ Association (now known as the Harlequins Players’ Association, “HPA”) and kept in touch with the club.
At the time of major changes to the non-executive team a couple of years ago Charles Jillings asked me if I would like to get involved and I joined the board as a non-executive director and Chairman of the Finance Sub-Committee.
When Mark Evans decided that it was time to move on I acted as interim Chief Executive while we looked for his permanent successor. This gave me a great opportunity to get to know the club in a much greater level of detail.
In September my predecessor as Chairman, Malcolm Wall, moved overseas and I was asked if I would like to take over. I was of course hugely flattered and delighted to accept. I look forward very much to playing my part in the next stage of the club’s development.
I have thoroughly enjoyed my first few months as Chairman.
Mark Evans left us in a great shape but there us still a lot to do.
David Ellis [DE]: I think I have the best job in the world.
I first came down to Harlequins about 20 years ago to train but I never made it into any of the teams, then I went to university and carried on playing. Then I played rugby league for a while and was offered a playing contract with London Broncos.
My background is in marketing and business development. I went to San Francisco to work for a dotcom, and then I started my own company. I have been in telecoms and more recently in a social housing company until I joined this great club.
Q: What changes to the Stoop and to the matchday experience are you hoping to make in the next 12 months?
DE: In the first few days after I joined I got everyone together and asked everyone what they wanted from the club, the players said they wanted to be the best team in Europe, and I said we wanted to be the best club in Europe.
So we need to work hard on success on the playing side and also on the commercial side of things, Mark Evans left us in a very good state, so we want to build from that platform, I want to fine tune things – the way people buy tickets, how we run ouraway trips, the quality and variety of food, the products and experience in our shops, and how do we know as a club we are listening properly – what are the communication channels we need to build so we can hear what you want from our club?
DM: It would be easy to sit here as instant experts, our staff have loads of experience, we’ve only been here for 2 months so we need to watch and learn. We have a good starting platform but we want to make the experience a lot better.
Quite a lot is being done with the stadium already – it looks a bit unloved at the moment. It’s not a 1-week or 1-month fix, but an ongoing one.
Q: When will you be redeveloping the North Stand?
DE: We have no current plans to replace the North Stand. In terms of the ground , we do want to create ‘Pride of Place’ culture here.We want to be certain that what we do is the best we can possibly do in all aspects of the stadium.
DM: So far the owners have built capacity ahead of demand. Charles and Duncan have pressed for building projects in the past, but first we want to improve the experience and then we can think about further expansion.
Q: What are the greatest threats we face in the next 12 months?
DM: One of the biggest threats to Premier Rugby as a whole is the inability of most clubs to make a profit; we have 10 out of 12 clubs relying on a benefactor. We only compete with a given opposition for about 160 minutes a year so we need to work together to make our clubs more commercially viable. What’s happening at the RFU at the moment isn’t really helping. Many threats aren’t within individual clubs, they concern Premier Rugby as a whole.
DE: There are only two consistently financially successful clubs in the premiership at the moment. With the need to make the club a successful business there could be a tendancy for some to forget their roots.What we need to concentrate on is keeping our values and traditions alongside the commercial side of things.
Q: At one of these previous events Mark Evans said that Harlequins was a 3pm on a Saturday Club, but we are getting more Friday and Sunday games, and some clubs are even taking matches overseas. This is degrading the season - the experience for the fans isn’t as good on a Friday evening or Sunday afternoon. Where do you think the right balance is?
DE: Friday evening matches bring a different set of fans to The Stoop, so it can be good to introduce others to the club. We also have different types of fans, those that come to the games, and those who support from afar, watching on TV. Since we have commercial contracts with TV companies, due to their viewing schedules, we will have to have some Friday and Sunday games.
DM: We try to get as many games at 3pm on a Saturday, some other clubs prefer a Friday evening. For as long as Premier Rugby wants to invest in the game then interacting with the media has to happen. As long as the media dollar is important to us we have to reach a balance with them. But we have a strong preference to play as many of our games as possible on a Saturday afternoon.
Q: We need to make a profit, we have loans of about £15M, are there any circumstances where these loans could be called in?
DM: We have a loan from Allied Irish against the stadium and loans from the owners. Our owners continue to support us and it has allowed us to make loan payments to the bank. To date no interest has been paid on the loans from our owners. If our owners decided to stop their support this would present a problem but you Board do not consider this likely to happen.
Q: What are your views on relegation and franchising?
DM: There are arguments for and against. For the time being the collective view of the Premiership Clubs is that as long as the winners of the Championship achieves the standards that have been set then it should continue. You look at Exeter and can see the great contribution they have made to the Premiership. As long as the standards are maintained I don’t think there will be a change in the near future.
DE: The level of competition is good, franchising would need a different funding model, but what we have at the moment works.
Q: Do the Trustees still have the golden share?
DM: Yes, until the Trustees decide to give it up it’s still there.
Q: One of the major assets of the club is our players, do you think that transfer fees will ever come in? They seem to have already come in in the cases of Flood and Tait. And do the Rugby League team give us income over the summer?
DM: I think those transfers were done when the players were still under contract. To be honest I haven’t really thought about it as yet, but I probably should. It is a good idea that if you are producing lots of young players you should be rewarded, but transfer fees might just increase costs.
DE: As far as the Rugby League club goes they have a contract with us that expires in 12 months. The non-match day team are trying to create the Stoop as a brand, looking to make it a real community club, perhaps hosting things like concerts. We would like to see the Stoop used 7 days a week, but we need to balance this with the fact that the primary function of the Stoop is as a rugby ground. Whatever we do, we always want to make sure that we can play on a Saturday afternoon on a pitch in very good condition.
Q: What are you doing to minimise the problems caused by South West Trains?
DE: We have tried to coordinate with them and tried to run extra replacement busses ourselves but we couldn’t get hold of enough extra busses to make the service viable.
DM: You have experienced it at its worst. We have to continue to work with SWTrains because we have to look after our supporters and we don’t want people to see the Stoop as a hard place to get to.
Q: Older supporters perhaps don’t want to wear T-shirts and replica shirts, what are the chances of getting jumpers with a simple jester design on them?
DE: We are looking at merchandising at the moment and we want to have a fan forum to discuss it.
Q: We heard that there was a season ticket target of 7000 for this season, have we managed it?
DE: As of today we have sold 6873, with mid-season season tickets sales starting we should meet our targets.
Q: What effect is the debacle over the road having?
DM: We are obviously concerned about developments over the past 6 - 12 months at the RFU. Having said that, much of the damage has been exacerbated by loose and unhelpful comments made to the press, we at Harlequins are determined not to make the issues any worse.
The Blackett Report was commissioned by, and addressed to, the Board and Council of the RFU and it is therefore not appropriate for us to respond publicly to it.
The established interface between the Aviva Premiership clubs and the RFU is via the PRL and the PGB which has been working well in the recent past. PRL remains committed to working with the RFU to optimise the commercial and playing potential of English Rugby. We at Harlequins fully support this approach and indeed to playing our part.
Q: Away games...we attended five away Premiership games last season plus the Amlin final in Cardiff. We travelled under our own steam and not in the Quinssa coach. In general the choice of seats offered to us was very poor. Will you take the lead in trying to improve "the away game experience" for ALL Premiership supporters~ not just Quins' supporters? EXAMPLE: offer good/better seat choice at the Stoop to away supporters... offer "Membership for the day" to away supporters...
DE: We take your comments on board, we certainly want to make the Stoop welcoming to away fans.
Q: When the RFU come for Conor what will we be able to do to retain his services?
DE: Conor is an incredibly honourable man, and you can see what’s happening here in terms of the rugby journey and it’s not finished yet. He’s contracted to us and committed to our club, so things are in our favour.
DM: We all want to build something here. We are alert to people making offers for Conor, he’s a fine person to work with and an honourable man.
Q: Is it a target to have the whole England 2015 squad at Quins except for the manager?
[Much laughter]
Q: Are you planning on taking any home games to places like Abu Dhabi or South Africa?
DM: We have no plans to do so. Remember that the Abu Dhabi game was a Wasps home fixture. We did consider what impact it would have, but when they said they wanted to play in the Middle East we were adamant that as Etihad was our main sponsor we would only play in Abu Dhabi.
Q: Is it vital for us to have the Big Game at Twickenham, can’t we have all of our home games at The Stoop?
DM: Having the game at Twickenham allows us to reach out to a larger supporter base and it is of real commercial value to the club. So at the moment it is very important to the club, but we will continue to review it.
Q: The public face of most professional clubs is the manager. What role do you see for yourselves – boring old farts in the background or will you have a media role alongside the manager?
DE: I have come from a commercial and marketing background, so on that side of things I would expect to be the public face, but on the rugby side of things Conor is the public face. I will also be working on how to build stronger links with the community and demonstrate how proud we are of where we are – that would be my side of things along with the commercial leadership team.
DM: We will have a real role with some stakeholders, don’t expect to see us on Sky or ESPN, but with PRL, PGB, RFU, sponsors, supporter base, commercial companies etc we will have an important role.
Q: The economics of success means since we are doing well there are more people in the bar for longer after each game, so is the Stadium Manager looking at the length of the queues after the game?
DE: Yes we are looking at queues as part of the review of the whole experience at The Stoop. A victory doesn’t affect income over the bar very much, but it can be seen. We do need to aspire to be excellent at everything we do and not just rely on success on the pitch to drive our business.
DM: 4,000 people wanting to buy a pint at half time shouldn’t really come as a complete surprise to us! You not being able to get that pint is a real opportunity lost, not just because of the lost revenue but also because of the poor experience supporters and visitors will have.
We want to look at the quality, choice and accessibility of food and drinks all around the ground.
Q: We have an increasing fan base and some games are selling out, what are the plans for increasing capacity?
DM: The current capacity is 14,282, we have the capacity to increase that to 15,000 but to do that there are some health and safety issues to sort out. It is difficult to justify developing a stand just for a couple of sell outs a year.
DE: We want higher attendance before doing anything, but we are planning for the future.
Q: Should we be used as a neutral venue?
DE: We have been asked to host certain matches, and we have been a neutral venue in the past. For example,we are looking at proposals to host events during the Olympics in 2012. However,first and foremost we want to look after the pitch for our team, so we can’t over use the pitch.
Q: What is the best way for the fans to give feedback?
DE: We haven’t found the best way to do it as yet, we will start with a forum with some fans first and build a communication plan from there.
John Hartley (Quinssa Chair): Quinssa acts as a way to offer feedback from our members and also from non-members
Q: Will you be moving to using electronic turnstiles?
DE: The whole ticketing system is up for renewal in February 2012. We are looking at access control as part of the whole system but, looking at the costs and benefits, it will probably be too expensive at the moment.
Q: Have the mission statements and presentations that Conor has shown us previously been published?
DM: We have shared it with some of our stakeholders.
DE: It’s something that we might think of doing.
Q: What are the chances of having some terracing at The Stoop, one planning application did show an area of terracing at the front of the South Stand?
DM: It’s topical as we are preparing to renew the planning for the South Stand so it’s something we can consider.
Q: We have a lot of England Qualified Players, will we be able to cope without an influx of overseas players?
DE: I have been down to see the youngsters training in Guildford and the quality is amazing. We believe that the majority of our squad should always be home grown, we do have the option of bringing in a big name player to help fill any gap., but this will only be done so as to benefit the whole squad and that decision is up to Conor.
DM: Striking a balance is key. We have consistently spent up to the wage cap for the last few seasons, at the moment we have a good balance between our homegrown players and overseas players. Conor will be keeping a close eye on it.
Q: I believe we have the best facilities in the Premiership except for our South Stand, the Quins Head could do with some improvement, what are your plans?
DE: We have just had a meeting with Greene King as to how to make the Quins Head better including how to make it warmer in the winter. So it is on our radar and we are working to make it better.
Q: At one of these events in the past Mark Evans said that the honours boards in the Members’ Bar were going to be updated but they haven’t been yet, when will they be done?
DM: We are working on them and they should be done by Christmas.
Q: The 150th anniversary of the club isn’t far off, what is being done so far?
DE: We are in the process of setting up a committee at the moment.
Q: In the past Quins haven’t publicized how much money has been raised for charity from the Big Game, could you in future?
DM: We will do in future.
Q: How successful is the shop in Twickenham Green?
DE: It is paying its way. Our reason for investing in it was to give a presence in our heartland, to remind people that we are here.
DM: We would just like to say thank you for listening to us, Quinssa is very much a part of our future, thank you all for your support.
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