REPORT ON THE MEMBERS’ MEETING THURSDAY 1ST FEBRUARY 2024

Well, our February members’ meeting was a fantastic one with plenty happening. We had our largest attendance for a meeting with a total of 183 members present.

Barbara started the meeting with a surprise for Pat Ellis. For those who did not know, Pat and her family had recently appeared on Michael McIntyre’s Big Show on Saturday night TV. Following their appearance on the show Pat and her daughter were also guests of Peter Levy on Look North.  Michael McIntyre called Pat, Nanny Pat and because of this, Barbara presented Pat with a Hull City shirt with Nanny Pat printed on the back. Pat saw the funny side of this and we all joined in the fun. Pat said her appearance on TV had made her no different now to what she was before the show. Well done Pat.

Tony Conway reminded everyone of our Memorabilia Day on 6^th June. This will be the first event in a series of events to celebrate the 120^th anniversary of Hull City. Tony is looking for unique items of club memorabilia and asked the members to look at home and see what they have. They have very few items between 1904 -1946 so we were encouraged to search around and perhaps unearth a treasure. Tony also asked whether anyone interested in heritage and the history of Hull City would like to join his team.

Allen informed the members that we are going to sponsor a Bridlington Town FC home game on Saturday 23^rd March against Pontefract Colliers. Pete Smurthwaite, one of our members is the owner of the club and has given his life to keeping football alive in Bridlington.  The Tigers do not have a home game that day so it would be an ideal opportunity for our members to lend their support by attending the game.

Amongst our audience this month was Rob McDonald who we all remember as an ex-city player from the 70’s. Rob now lives in Holland and is over in the UK visiting family and friends. As our guest speakers were late in arriving Rob agreed to do a short interview with Allen. Rob spoke about his career and how lucky he was that his hobby had been his career.

Our guest speaker this month was not one but two Hull City players. They were Billy Sharp and Regan Slater who are both ex-Blades players. Billy has recently joined the Tigers from America. He is the leading English goal scorer in English football. Regan was our Player of the Season for 2022/23. Regan said he had grown up knowing about and then playing with Billy at Sheffield United. Billy and Regan travel together to and from Sheffield where they both still live. Regan said how the team felt robbed of not being able to share with the supporters the moment they won promotion back into the Championship during Covid. This is something we all missed out and feel sad that we could not celebrate with them.

Following the interview, Regan was officially presented with the Gerry Ashton Memorial Trophy for the Player of the Season for 2022/23 by Ron Betts. This was because we were unable to present it to Regan at the end of last season. The replica trophy which the player gets to keep was presented to Regan at a pre-season match by Pat Betts and the Committee which many of our members will not have witnessed.

Pat Ellis thanked them both for giving up their time to attend our meeting and it would be great if they could come back again at some point.

Andrew Clark who is the Marketing & Commercial Manager for Hull City joined us to introduce himself. He was joined by Geoff Bielby who is a Director of the Hull City Supporters Trust. They attended our meeting to tell us about the Anlaby Road Tribute Project, a project to uncover and preserve parts of the old Anlaby Road football ground. Parts of the old terracing are still standing but are covered with weeds. Geoff showed a film clip about the old ground to the members which had aired on Look North. He also showed a diagram of the old ground in relation to the position of the MKM Stadium. A heritage project is being launched aimed at preserving what remains of Hull City’s original Anlaby Road ground before it is too late. Chris Smith from the HCST will be responsible for delivering the A.R.T. Project. Geoff is hoping to work on it with Rob, Tony and our memorabilia team which will be exciting for them.

To finish off the afternoon we held our usual raffle which was kindly drawn by Rob McDonald. The raffle raised £319.00.

It was a fantastic and interesting afternoon with plenty to talk about.

Shirley Cormack (Secretary)

Regan receiving Player of the Year

Trophy from Ron Betts

Geoff Bielby and Andrew Clark

The interview in full swing