Hammers United have long sensed that the unity across our fanbase is strengthening. Your efforts to help us make our supporter survey the next leg of a truly meaningful journey have demonstrated that once again.
The results depict strong trends and a show of togetherness.
Our fans are passionate and loyal, and it is important that we define what it truly means to be a West Ham United supporter.
The survey results show very clearly what is important to our supporter base.
Completing a survey is not an enticing proposition, but the phenomenal number of you who took the time to make that contribution have given us an invaluable opportunity, a true sense of pride and a reminder of our responsibility.
The response rate confirms the results we have are statistically significant.
We must also take this chance to thank the Football Supporters Association, who offered support and guidance throughout the arduous process of ensuring the questions were fair and balanced. We are assured, from their examples of good practice and their specific feedback, that the data we now hold is valid and reliable.
We can now say with increasing confidence that we understand the profile, the sentiment and the hopes of our members, who made up 43.22% of respondents. With the significant number of overall responses and the unexpected engagement from those who were not members of any FSA affiliated group (51.61% of respondents), we have absolute certainty and clarity that the building blocks you have provided to underpin our future direction are solid.
We are in no doubt that these results represent the views of our members and the wider fanbase.
Our members have been very clear that to represent them we must push for an Independent Supporters Committee to be created, to allow us to enter into structured dialogue with the Club. With the creation of that construct on the horizon, we now have a concise breakdown of the immediate priorities that the fanbase, the Hammers United members, and members of other FSA affiliated groups, would like to us to address.
These results define those short terms priorities in order of importance for all groups.
It is especially pleasing to note that the issues close to the heart of all groups within our supporter base are closely aligned and underpin the aims and objectives of Hammers United. This will inform us as we seek to help the Club improve its relationship with its supporters.
The results clearly spell out what is important to you and we are encouraged that those results reaffirm the path we have chosen as your supporters group.
You continue to empower us to work on your behalf, and we continue that work in earnest. Alongside our focus on the immediate and specific priorities that this survey highlights, we will analyse the responses to allow us to go about designing (and then ratifying through further consultation) the principles upon which to base the supporter experience at our Football Club.
We believe that by creating a set of principles our cause can have longevity and be relevant beyond the situation we find ourselves in now, the specifics that we must work on quickly and even the current ownership of our Club.
We must now interpret the results to design the principles and put these back out to the membership and the fanbase.
We will be delighted to share the survey findings with the loyal fanbase, that has given up their time to complete our survey, and we envisage that we will be in a position to do this in the near future. We believe it is right that the next steps are to share these poignant results with the Independent Supporters Committee (once it is in place) and in turn with the Club, before then making them available for all supporters to see.
We are thrilled with the results and we are eager to share them, but we must follow a fair and proper process.
We feel it is the right thing at this juncture however, to congratulate David Moyes, the coaching staff and the squad in the public domain. The vast majority of the results we collated speak to the running of the Football Club away from the 90 mins itself and encompass all aspects of the supporter experience. We look forward to working with the Club on those findings and publishing them for all to examine, but in the meantime, it is pleasing to note the support that our team continues to enjoy. 80.48% of West Ham United supporters reported feeling positive or very positive about the management of the Club from a football perspective. Come on You Irons!
Your committee is honoured and energised, and will continue to work tirelessly in 2021 to ‘improve things for all West Ham United supporters’.
Thank you once again for taking part in our survey and for you continued, unwavering, support.
