Chairman Sumrith 'Tiger' Thanakarnjanasuth brings us the latest news from the Boardroom
We are almost two weeks into the season and I wanted to bring you a little update on things from the Board.
As promised, we are trying to be more regular with our updates and I would like to thank Zaki and Niall for stepping up and helping out at a phone in Fans Forum. Communication internally is very strong - I speak to the Heads of Department at the club every day and now that we have that system firmly in place we will try our best to be more public with news as and when we get it or can say anything about some of the exciting projects we are currently working on.
We work closely with our local media and I enjoy the Five Minute Fans Forums on BBC Oxford. To be clear about one thing - Karl usually does his one live on air and I will do that when I can but they are at 6.30pm UK time and if I am at home in Thailand that is the middle of the night! I’d rather record it slightly earlier where possible.
I was back in Oxford last weekend and what a busy time to be around the club. It had been a summer of planning and hard work and on the day before we played Peterborough we invited Oxvox and a few other fans to come and take a look around the Training Ground. I think everyone enjoyed themselves and could see the way that every member of staff works so hard on behalf of their football club.
Immediately after, we held the 66th AGM. The shareholders, rightly, asked about the accounts for 2018. This is fairly old ground now but I went in to some detail, alongside our Finance Director Tim Davies, around unforseen costs which we had to face in my first year. Those are paid now and we are in a very strong position. The sale of Gavin Whyte has also helped us invest in a very good squad: Chris Cadden, Alex Gorrin, Tariqe Fosu, Elliott Moore, Ben Woodburn, Anthony Forde and now Dan Agyei have all added to a strong group and there will be two or three new faces over the next couple of weeks.
We held a Board meeting before the Peterborough game and our commitment to Karl and to the club remains as strong as ever. Our aim is a successful club and an exciting team and I think fans are starting to see what we are building: Sky Sports liked our idea of including all of the Academy players in the squad list so much that they came to film a special feature this week and we have held some extremely positive talks on key issues for the club over the last ten days.
We held the team photoshoot outside the Natural History Museum on Sunday morning and I was struck by the fact that not one player or staff member moaned about doing it on what should have been a day off. They were happy to come and join us because they know the importance of connecting the club with such a fantastic city. I got there exactly on time at 9am and everyone was already ready!
The only negative thing to report so far was the injury to Malachi Napa on Tuesday. We all love Malachi not just because he is a very good player but also because he has such a positive outlook. He is part of the OUFC family and I know Karl visited him in hospital, as did many players and staff. He will come back fitter than ever and we will do all that we can to help him.
Finally I just wanted to mention the Season Ticket offer that we put out this week: anyone who came to the game last Saturday can reclaim the price of their ticket if they buy a season ticket. It is just a small gesture but I very much hope that supporters have enjoyed what they have seen so far and will want to be part of the Yellow Army for what promises to be a very exciting season ahead…