Board members in attendance: Heather McKinlay, Heather Alderson, Richard Wiseman, Nigel Kleinfeld, Stuart Court, Jade Hannan, Bob Munro, Sam White
Key areas covered at March’s CAST Board were as follows:
- Meeting with Charlton’s Dedicated Football Officer (DFO)
In light of the Millwall and Chelsea home matches and issues impacting fans at these matches due to police decisions and actions, we invited Charlton’s DFO, Mick Robson, to speak with us. Mick described his role and the procedures which his team use to decide risk levels for particular games before handing over to the match commander who has overall control. Mick described that the club must pay for police in the stadium, and, as the event organiser, have some responsibility for streets outside the stadium and are also responsible for traffic orders for road closures. The match commander can overrule existing plans if circumstances demand. He said both the club and the police had taken significant learning from the Millwall home match especially in terms of communication. We agreed with Mick that communications in advance of the Millwall away fixture had been better. CAST is now more appraised of the decision making processes around any future fixtures that may be deemed high risk.
2. Club Relationship
Board members who attended updated on a good meeting with club chairman Gavin Carter, which focussed on the club’s forthcoming priorities.
An initial meeting took place recently with the club and fellow Addick fundraiser Tim Cross concerning the permanent memorial to Norman Barker at The Valley. This included identification of a potential site. CAST has also recently received funds raised by former player John Robinson. We will now progress creative development.
We also met with the club about medical emergency protocol and ways in which the control room could be alerted as quickly as possible. The club are looking into the ideas discussed with the aim of bringing an update to the next Supporters’ Forum in mid April.
We are engaging with the club on the Charlton Women’s team (CAWFC), supporting the promotion of matches to the end of the season and looking at longer term opportunities to build attendances and engagement. All agreed that it was positive that the club are making an offer on CAWFC season tickets as part of the overall season ticket campaign.
There have been no Advisory Board meetings since the last CAST board meeting. We provided input to the club’s season ticket plans via the AB and all agreed that the consultation process could be improved in future, especially allowing earlier consideration of overall strategy and objectives plus more time to review detailed proposals.
The club has appointed a new Fan Engagement Officer, Hannah Jacobs. At present Hannah has not taken on formal SLO responsibilities. CAST will arrange to meet with Hannah in the next few weeks. CAST will register with the club as an official supporters group, having clarified with the FSA that this does not impact our affiliation as an independent supporters’ trust.
The next Supporters’ Forum is scheduled for 16 April and CAST will attend.
We have expressed to the club our view that the proposal to move season ticket holders in the West Stand to make way for hospitality seats has been poorly handled.
3. CAST Initiatives
We reviewed key updates on our Activity Log.
The Greener Game is confirmed as Norwich on 21 March. Via the FSA and Pledgeball, CAST has helped find fans to participate in a feature on travelling by public transport to The Valley.
After speaking with Tracey Leaburn, we promoted the PSA testing registration and fundraising. There are still around 100 tests available and considerable fundraising needed so that the costs of the Barry Kilby Appeal can be covered. We agreed to continue to promote actively, including informing Preston fans.
We discussed issues of abuse. Anything in-stadium, including misogyny, should be reported at the time to the nearest steward or the club’s abuse line - 64446. The club have confirmed that they will act immediately on any reports via the text number. The All Party Parliamentary Group for football has just started an inquiry into online harms and is presently calling for evidence.
We have sought nominations from the Academy for the Steve Clarke award and also from CAWFC.
4. FSA and External Activity
The FSA AGM is taking place on 6th June and some CAST board members will attend. We discussed raising a motion regarding fan consultation on matters of league organisation / competition integrity. While the FSA raised the topic in structured dialogue with the EFL, we were disappointed that the FSA did not do more to gauge fan sentiment on the (now approved) changes to Championship play-offs.
5. Any Other Business
Now that season tickets are on sale, we will prepare the annual CAST survey.
Members of the CAST board subsequently met with Charlton Chairman Gavin Carter:
https://www.castrust.org/2026/03/cast-meeting-with-gavin-carter/