Huddersfield Town’s New Sense Of Optimism
After 30 years at the John Smith’s Stadium, Huddersfield Town is making significant changes to its business culture, stadium operations and fan experience. fcbusiness interviewed three of the club’s senior executives to explore the developments, the impact and their future goals.
Words: Aaron Gourley – fcbusiness magazine issue 160
Huddersfield Town has experienced a turbulent journey in recent years. They went from the highs of the Premier League to being relegated to League One last season.
Former owner Dean Hoyle sold a 75% stake in the club to Phil Hodgkinson in 2019, only to buy it back in 2022, and then sold his full stake to American businessman Kevin Nagle. This change marked the beginning of yet another transformational period for the club – only this time, they are taking concrete actions to address long-standing issues that have needed attention for many years.
Despite the club’s years in the Premier League, they were always limited in terms of facilities and revenue generation potential. This is something that is changing under the new owner and with a series of new executive hires, progress is now underway.
Nagle, who also owns Sacramento Republic FC in the USL, is eager to see the club regain its former successes and has set high ambitions. However, ambition must be followed by action, which is often lacking in football, especially after a club suffers relegation.
Despite that setback Huddersfield suffered at the end of last season, there is an air of positivity around Kirklees stemming from the immediate work being done behind the scenes to change the club’s mindset.
Enter the story of Jake Edwards as CEO and Paul Reeves as Chief Revenue Officer, two highly experienced executives hired to strengthen the club’s commercial potential. Additionally, the internal promotion of Robyn Kennerdale to Head of Supporter Experience has further strengthened the club’s connection between the board and fans.
The restructuring of the executive line-up has also led to changes in several key areas of the club and opened new avenues for growth whilst the priority has been to assess the situation on the ground and allay fears among staff following the club’s relegation and its new direction.
“A lot of things attracted us to come here,” explained Edwards, the former USL CEO who moved from Tampa, Florida, to West Yorkshire to take on the challenge of leading Huddersfield back to the top level of English football.
“We didn’t know the extent of everything that we were going to uncover as we went along, but there was a sense of optimism that we could add value to the club. We could take it on a journey back to the top, where we could invest in the stadium, matchday experience and staff. This also includes the youth academy to the first team. It was going to be a long-term project, and Kevin Nagle was committed to that – it was a very attractive proposition.”
Edwards suggests Nagle found a lot of similarities in his community in Sacramento to those in Huddersfield.
“They need to punch above their weight,” he continues. “But there’s a sense of pride in the community through the football club. We want to be a challenger, but we’ve got some big cities near Huddersfield that we’ve got to fight for oxygen with at times.
“In Sacramento, he’s used to that. It’s the California state capital, but Los Angeles and San Francisco are the cities that get all the attention. So, there’s a fighting spirit, the fight that we’re embarking on to create a better version of ourselves. It’s a story about opportunity and how far we can take this.”
Edwards continues: “It took a good 6 months to really get a handle on what we were dealing with in terms of what staff we had and didn’t have, assessing how far they can go, where the gaps were and where we needed to bring in some additional team members.”
“I think the supporters are seeing all those changes that have been made and that they didn’t happen by accident, there was a strategic plan in place in the off-season”
Culture Changes
Restructuring the executive set-up has gone hand-in-hand with a complete change in staff culture, of which a lot of effort has been made to realign the way they approach the business. After the relegation last season, Nagle brought all the club’s staff together to address the situation going forward and to alleviate concerns about their situation.
Having worked at the club for over 18 years, Robyn Kennerdale, the Head of Supporter Experience, described it as transformational.
“For the new owner to do what he’s done to make sure that we were all in the same place as one of the very first things that he did when he arrived at the club just demonstrates the people centred approach that he’s got,” she explained.
“It’s not that we didn’t have that before, but I think it’s only when you start to implement some of these things that the culture changes and people want to work together. There were areas of the club that were potentially separate from each other like commercial and fan experience, but we work well together now because all the decisions are made in tandem rather than in silos. It’s been great from that perspective.”
To affect the change in culture one of the biggest investments has been to improve the working conditions for the employees. This involved transforming the office space from a collection of hidden backrooms within the stadium to a single, spacious open-plan office that reflects the new ambitions of the club.
“We took everybody out of those little caves that they were working in with no daylight, and we invested in this fantastic new office space here,” Edwards continues.
“It would take us a week to get meetings organised as I didn’t know who was in the office and who wasn’t. Now we’re all in this very modern, very exciting and dynamic office where we can see everyone. We can make decisions in real-time, we can bring commercial, marketing, communications and operations together at the drop of a hat.
“It is also a statement of intent of who we want to be and how we want to perceive ourselves. The staff that are in here now, I can see walk a little taller now, a bit prouder to be part of the organisation and they’re working harder and more efficiently as well.
“We’ve started by affecting the behaviour of the staff and we’ve added senior executives that have come from both within and outside the club. They are people who know what good looks like and that’s important. They can lead the groups that they’re overseeing, but they’ve got to walk the walk. There’s been a lot of talk over the years, but in the face of what happened at the end of last season, we are making major investments across the club.”
That opportunity is something the owner is taking seriously, and a lot of work is going on to lay the foundations for long-term success in all areas of the club.
“There was a lot of work to the stadium that needed doing, and not just from an infrastructure investment point of view, but how we are able to ultimately get control of the stadium and the strategy behind that – working with the council and the rugby club. That’s taken some time to get to a point now where I think we’re closer than we’ve ever been before to capturing the stadium.”
The ownership of the stadium is one of the key areas of focus for the club. The current agreement which has been in place for over 30 years, is currently split 40% Kirklees Council, 40%, Huddersfield Town and 20% Huddersfield Giants, but taking full ownership will greatly benefit the club’s long-term goals.
The 53-acre site, located next to a retail park and containing various leisure facilities, offers the club numerous opportunities to create new sources of income and enhanced fan experiences. And they have wasted no time, spending the summer revitalising and upgrading the stadium to align with its ambitions and offer fans a new matchday experience.
“We’re learning how to engage with our fans much more at every touch point; that’s on a matchday, in their journey to the match, during the game, post-match as well as digitally”
Working closely with fans, Robyn Kennerdale, has overseen several changes aimed at improving the fan experience and re-branding the club’s identity, underpinned by their ‘Everything Together’ campaign.
“Initially we wanted to look at a complete change in terms of the brand and the vision of the football club,” Kennerdale explained.
“But we didn’t want that to look in any way engineered by us, so we set out to involve the fans in those conversations and that’s been a really strong element of the campaign.
“We asked fans what their favourite things are about the club, what makes them proud, and it just snowballed from there. It’s made this an impressive piece of work because it’s so authentic to the people that come here.
“The whole stadium bowl has been refreshed along with the concourses. There’s also the new fanzone which will be open towards the end of this year. That will be game-changing for revenue and from a fan experience perspective.
“I say this all the time, but the football is first and foremost for many fans and that will be the only thing that they care about, and that’s totally understandable. But the longer that I spend in this job and speaking to fans, I think it’s shifting.
“We’re in West Yorkshire where people are not scared of coming forward if they want to tell us their opinions, and we get feedback about everything from pies to pints and absolutely everything in between. They are the things that matter to people and they’re the things that influence whether they come in the first place or whether they come back again.
“From a new supporters’ perspective, that’s important, that’s golden data for us. We have got to be listening to those people and using that information to inform our decision-making if we want to grow the club.
“We have put the most amount of resources in I’ve ever seen in my 18 years at the football club.”
Commercial Changes
A few months into the role, Paul Reeves, the former Sheffield United Head of Commercial, believes Huddersfield is on a similar journey to the one that the South Yorkshire club embarked on over ten years previously. He has been restructuring the partnership programme to better serve both clients and the club.
“What was very clear in the few months I’ve been here is there’s been a large transition of partnerships and that long-term relationships just haven’t been developed as a result,” Reeves said.
“I have been getting out on the ground and seeing local businesses and demonstrating to them our changing vision and ambition.
“We’ve simplified the partnership model and created a three-tier partnership approach. As a result, we’ve got to a position where we don’t want a high volume of partners that we can’t look after, it’s about getting a smaller number of quality partnerships at a higher value that we can then look after very well.
“In time, we will also be looking to invest in our hospitality areas, in order to make this stadium an attractive matchday and non-matchday venue for supporters and corporate clients to host guests and hold events of all sizes,” Reeves added.
The changes may seem logical, but they often require a complete reset of the culture and leadership to successfully implement such a drastic shift in focus. This brings us back to the situation with the stadium and the significant investment Nagle is making to ensure that all stakeholders in Huddersfield benefit. In the long run, the benefits of doing so will more than compensate for the immediate implementation costs, as Edwards suggests.
He states: “For us, it’s about driving revenue and unlocking the revenue potential of the stadium. As a shareholder of the stadium currently, we don’t have access to all the assets and inventory and that’s what we’re working towards – getting control of the stadium so we can maximise its commercial value and then really focus on the fan experience.
“We’re learning how to engage with our fans much more at every touch point; that’s on a matchday, in their journey to the stadium, during the game, post-match as well as digitally.
“In the past we’ve let ourselves down on the experience we were giving supporters. Some of that was because we don’t control all aspects of the stadium. When you’ve got third-party vendors controlling things, whether that’s the stewarding, or parking, or catering, if you’re not totally in control it’s difficult.
“It was clear that we had to be in control of those touchpoints, we needed the leadership to oversee all of those touchpoints and Robyn, who’s worked for the football club for many years, knows our fans inside and out and has spent lots of time in fan engagement groups.
“She has a list as long as her arm of all the things that fans would like to see improved or changed. We’re trying to make sure that we’re continually delivering the best version of ourselves, and we are listening, we are responsive and we are able to make those strategic business changes to affect all the experiences that the fans can have with us.”
Football Changes
It has been an eventful first year for Edwards and the executive leadership. They have been busy building a new commercial model, managing the stadium, enhancing the customer experience and making significant investments in the football team. Their to-do list has been quite demanding.
“That made it a challenging first year and it didn’t end the way we envisioned or planned,” he said. “Very quickly though we were able to transition to a state of optimism, not just off the field but on it as well because the overarching thing we’ve had to do here is change the culture of both.
“We want to change that underdog mentality. We’re a big club, we want to set some big expectations and challenges.
“To do that after a relegation, people ask how can you be serious? I know we must build belief in the staff first and foremost. How do they believe that we’re changing into a culture of a challenger club that wants to go to the top?
“We’ve spent nearly £2m on the stadium so far. But we’ve also spent upwards of three-quarters of a million pounds on the training ground upgrading the fitness rooms and we’re relaunching the Academy, for which we’ve been approved Category 3 status.
“We have ambitions to continue to move to Category 2 and beyond. We’re investing heavily in new facilities for the players and parents of the Academy. When the players come back, they’ll see that the gym that they have had for 10 years has been upgraded.
“We felt towards the end of last season we needed a culture change on the football side. We needed to move some players out and needed to bring in players who were committed to the football club, that wanted to go on the journey and could play the kind of exciting attacking football that we want.
“There wasn’t enough of that last season, so we’ve built a recruitment and a talent identification team. We’ve hired new head scouts and a new scouting team, new analysts and built our recruitment team out.
“Now we’ve got quality players in the building and there’s been significant investment on the field. It’s important that they come to work every day and feel like they’re in a top environment and the players around them are the right players, they’re hungry and that will make a big difference.
“I think the supporters are seeing all those changes that have been made and that they didn’t happen by accident, there was a strategic plan in place in the offseason.
“As soon as we knew where we were going to be in the league, we knew we had work to do to keep our supporters on side and we’ve worked hard to show them every step of the way, to include them in some of the work that’s been done and they’ve paid us back because we’re now at the same levels of season ticket sales as last season.
“It was important for the Chairman and all of us to make sure that we could maintain the support and reward them for what have been a difficult few seasons. They’ve paid us back this so we will have another strong crowd this season and hopefully, the football delivers for them.”
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The Stadium Story So Far
Phase One
Over £2 million has been invested in renovating the stadium this summer. The renovations include a new indoor supporter’s bar that can accommodate up to 800 people, and is expected to be completed by November. Additionally, new air conditioning and heating units, boilers, plant equipment and kitchen equipment have been replaced or are scheduled for replacement. The stadium’s exterior, including the iconic stadium trusses on the roof, have been repainted or power washed. The catering areas for both home and away supporters in the Cowshed South Stand have been covered. Furthermore, the concourses throughout the Riverside Stand have been repainted, and murals have been installed. Additionally, the home dressing room at the stadium has been entirely redeveloped and refurbished, whilst at Canalside – there has been the refurbishment of the gym and activation areas at the training ground and eight brand new bespoke Academy dressing rooms, complete with café and family area.
Phase Two
During this season and leading up to next summer, Phase Two will prioritise enhancing the stadium’s premium services by introducing new lounge concepts and modernising all current hospitality boxes. Additionally, a new club shop will be constructed, tripling the size of the current one and offering an exciting experiential retail experience. This will include a historic memorabilia section as well as a ticket sales office.
Article taken from fcbusiness magazine issue 160 – to read more or to subscribe, click here
