This latest article featuring Leicester City Chairman Andrew Taylor answering questions raised by Trust Members covering the lack of pop concerts at the stadium and local scouting
Concerts
From Iain Kirtley
Will we ever have a concert at the Walkers? It's embarrassing that Coventry, Derby and Forest all seem able to get gigs at their grounds yet we couldn't even organise one with c-list groups.
AT Answer – Iain, this is another of those questions that involves the priorities, the judgement of the Board. The stadium was built to comply with the structural standards dictated by the football authorities for crowd safety.
Were the club to seek a licence now to put on a concert we would need a higher level of structural integrity….seemingly this is a unit of measurement called dynamic frequency. So in short our dynamic frequency isn't up to concert standard.
Were we to get up to concert standard we would need to spend another £200k. In due course we will do it but it's currently not a priority.
It would be great to host some events at the stadium and you may have seen the recent Kasabian interview on the club's website where they talked about playing the Walkers.
In the short term though the Board's priorities involve getting the ground full, getting the revenues flowing and then we can start to work on the "nice-to-do's" as well as the "need-to-do's"…..
Academy Scouting
From Rob Coe
What is the club doing to establish more links with local clubs to pick up the players the academy has missed and have the scouting network improved?
AT Answer – I would guess the Academy staff may always miss some players but the club has staff out on the road scouring talent in Leicestershire and beyond.
Additionally one of the weaknesses that RK sought to plug concerned scouting for the first team squad and we have recruited John Marshall. John will watch the emerging talent.
One of the benefits I've had since joining the Board is that I have heard the inside track on the way that Martin O'Neill operated. It's legend with the City insiders that Martin was very diligent with his planning but he did an immense amount of homework on signings, having players watched many, many times before we signed them.
Rob will use his staff to make sure we get 2nd, 3rd, 10th opinions if necessary so we get the best fit.
Look out for further Q & A articles with Andrew Taylor on the website, also soon we will start a series of articles with Club Chaplain Bruce Nadin