United Pars meeting

Semi Final Ticket discussions, Former Players Club progress.

The United Pars meeting on Thursday night heard concerns over the time in took, on the Saturday of the last home game against Ross County, to sell tickets for the Homecoming Scottish Cup tie against Aberdeen. Representing the Club, Director Karen Masterton apologised for the time it had taken fans in the queue and said that she hoped this would not occur again. The Ticket Office is to be relocated beside the Club Shop within the Main Stand at East End Park and there will be two stations to serve customers.

Karen, Jim Leishman and Ian Baker from the Ticket Office had a meeting at Hampden earlier this week. Tickets for the Semi Final are priced £25, £22 and £18. The Club has an allocation of 2000 tickets for the Family Section - £15 Adults / £5 Child. There will be no restriction on the number of tickets that can be ordered by priority groups.

[The tickets will be available for pre-order as from Monday 30th March from 10.00am. - for priority groups such as Season Ticket holders, lounge members, DAFC Sponsors, Pars On-line members, DAFC Lottery Agents and fans with ticket stubs from the quarter final games. General pre-orders will commence on 1st April.] Karen will confirm disabled access at the National Stadium. Semi Final Ticket Info

At the Semi Final there is provision for one club mascot per team but Dunfermline have requested that 11 mascots be allowed for each team. The SFA will consider this. At half time there will be entertainment with a team from the DAFC Community programme.

The Club has booked eight buses to leave from East End Park, including two buses that will be part of the Breakfast and Bus deal. The Dunfermline Athletic Supporters Club will have six buses leaving East End Park at 10.30am on the morning of the Semi Final. Any other supporters clubs arranging transport leaving from East End Park that day should inform Kenny Arnott at the Club so that provision can be made for parking.

Players Calum Woods and Simon Wiles were present at the meeting and they answered fans questions and reflected on the team's performance in league and cup.

Bob Storie and Chris Wishart updated those present on the formation of a Formers Players Club. They had held six or seven meetings with locally based former players, the likes of Roy Barry, Harry Melrose, Bonar Mercer, Jim Bowie and Paddy Wilson. Bob said that the stage had been reached where the onus was really on them to form a committee.

"The feedback we have had from former players has been very good. They are all up for it and very keen to come along en masse. We believe we are very close to have this up and running in its fully finished format for the start of next season.

"We have given them some ideas on how to raise money and along the way there will be things like golf outings, where fans will be given the opportunity to play with a former player in your group; a sportsman's dinner of their own - various events where they can raise money themselves that they will be able to give back to the club very much like the Centenary Club.

"Chris and I were very lucky to be invited to Motherwell's Former Players Club earlier this season where they have been consistently successful in giving money back to the club every year. We hope that fans will like to see former players back here."

Chris Wishart added:-

"We would like to see former players coming along to meetings like this and getting involved with the current players as well. Any of you who have seen them on a Saturday will see that they are fans like us. They support the Club and these are gods - people like Roy Barry, Bert Paton and Harry Melrose.

"Every era has got its favourite players whether we were a successful club or not. Bob has been very successful in contacting right across the years so the next meeting the former players have will have representatives from every era. They know that they have been available in Legends but we want them to have full contact with the fans.

"The reaction of the players has been fabulous, they have all been up for it and desperately keen to get involved. Former players look back on their time at this Club happily."

Chris stressed how the Club has been hugely supportive. He concluded that he was enthusiastic about the club "but we will only know once we have got the full membership together."

Karen announced that the Club would hold a Sportsman's Dinner at East End Park on Saturday 9th May 2009.

Another United Pars meeting will be held in 6 or 7 weeks time.