The Hull City Official Supporters’ Club
Annual General Meeting
Thursday 17th July, 2025 – 6pm
Tigers Trust Arena
Attendees:
Directors:
• Kathryn Ward (nee Townsley) (KW) (Chair)
• Will Jordan (WJ) (Finance Director)
• John Drinkall (JD) (Events Director)
• Jan Drinkall (JDr) (Admin Director)
Also in attendance:
• Elaine Gutherless (EG)
• Skye Gutherless (SG)
Apologies for absence:
• Brendon Smurthwaite (BS)
• Sharon Nicholson (SN)
• Sue Cracknell (SC)
• Donna Smith
• Tiffany Galloway (TG)
• Ava Galloway (AG)
Minutes of the AGM 2024
• These were distributed and approved by those Directors present as a true record of events.
Matters arising out of the minutes
• No matters arising.
Chair’s Report
• See attached – it was an emotional final report!
• JDr thanked KW for the past 8 years, the OSC would not be here without her. This was
echoed by all present.
• It was agreed that attendance at OSC events has continued to grow, thanks to all involved.
Finance Report
• See attached and also draft accounts.
• WJ explained that we have made a small profit this year.
• Membership and subscriptions are stable.
• Turnover has been the highest in recent years.
• WJ explained that unfortunately we can’t reclaim VAT.
Marketing / Media / Events Report
• No formal report.
• EG explained that she has additional people to write pre-match reports. First few matches
are already arranged and on her spreadsheet.
• EG will take over memberships asap as TG has resigned due to personal commitments.
• EG suggested asking some younger fans to undertake match reviews. It was agreed that
this was a good idea.
• EG and SG suggested additional quizzes other than open the box or bus stops pre-match.
• Suggestion to approach firms to give discounts to fans with OSC membership.
• KW explained that club have once again promised a calendar of events. This has been
promised previously but has never materialised.
• EG will accompany JD to meeting with club. Need to liaise with BS.
• Suggested we hold board games night, beetle drive and similar kind of events.
• KW suggested it would still be beneficial to try and attract sponsorship eg for guess the
score competition.
Events Director Report
• As mentioned by KW this year saw Meet the Team events held at the Blackburn Leisure
Club in Brough and the Good Fellowship on Cottingham Road in Hull. The Brough event
saw an audience of 68, 10 of whom were OSC members, with the Goodfellowship being
attended by 79 (including 18 OSC).
• Attendance at the 20 Years On event at the MKM was quite a bit down on the previous year
but all those who were spoken to, fans and players, said how much they enjoyed the night.
• JD presented analysis of the events which included, attendance, costs, ticketing and
publicity. By far the highest number of booking were from seeing the event on Facebook.
Thanks to EG for posting these.
• Everyone agreed that all events had been successful. The 20 year celebration being the
icing on the cake.
• JD wants to explore extending the meet the team events to include backroom staff, stars of
the future, academy staff and players and legends night. Everyone agreed this was a good
idea.
Election of Directors & Officers
• Chair (incorporating events) – John Drinkall (Proposed by KW and seconded by WJ)
• Vice Chair - Kathryn Ward (proposed by JDr seconded by JD)
• Finance Director - Will Jordan - happy to continue
• Media Director – Alex Green
• Admin Director – Jan Drinkall
• Membership - Elaine Gutherless
• Social media - Skye Gutherless
There were 2 candidates for the Chair (John Drinkall and Peter Tarbitten)
Officers
• Club representative - Brendon Smurthwaite
• John Hawley
Talks will take place with 3 other fans who have expressed an interest in becoming involved.
AOB
• Agreed that more face to face meetings are needed. Bi-monthly was agreed.
• LMS will start again at the beginning of the season. It was agreed that this should still focus
on the championship and that during the FA Cup and international breaks the competition
will be halted. (FA Cup until there are no championships clubs involved)
• WJ will make contact with Companies House to remove / add directors.
• Need new graphics for score competition, quiz, LMS – JDr will message OB.
• May need to consider changing bank signatories.
• WJ confirmed that our accounts run for the calendar year.
• We will decide on any charity donations at the end of this accounts year.
Date and time of next meeting:
• Further meeting arranged for 24th July at 6pm at Sails Café, Skidby between KW, JD and
EG.
Hull City Official Supporters Club Limited
AGM
Thursday 17h July 20245
Chair’s Report – Kathryn Ward (nee Townsley) 16th July 2025
I remember fearing the worst this time last season – sad that our football club had said farewell to one
of the most promising, up & coming young English managers (Liam Rosenior) and had appointed Tim
Walters, a newcomer to the Championship to head up the team. I hate to say it, but I wasn’t wrong. For
the first time in all my football supporting life, I actually fell out of love with football – though I suppose
technically, it wasn’t football that we were enduring week in & week out at the MKM Stadium and on
Tigers Travels…..it was just awful and it was definitely too long before Herr Walters was replaced.
Ruben Selles was then appointed to take over – things improved, slightly, but what could he do with a
set of players that he’d had little choice in working with? He seemed a decent chap, much loved by his
previous club’s fans at Reading and showed his sense of humour at different Hull City related events –
just a shame he didn’t get chance to work his magic on players he brought in. I wish him, and Tim
Walters and their assistants well in their future careers.
Now we face a late summer / autumn which starts with a likely 3 season transfer embargo, no striker
and another new manager, another who is new to the English Football League and the Championship.
Hold on tight everyone, it could be a rough ride, but let’s see – we’ve had 3 pre-season friendlies as I
write this report and miraculously have won 2 of those – not sure that’s happened for a while, so maybe
I shouldn’t be as fearful of a disappointing season as I actually am.
Having said that, I will never not support my team…. And that basically is what the Official Supporters
Club is all about isn’t it?!
To OSC matters then…
I’m not going to tread on Will’s toes, but I do know we still need to do more on a membership front –
our offering and our mission to ensure renewals and new members join – though they do join up at our
events and feedback from our events is always good. We also need to ensure our bank balance remains
healthy –our recurring costs are mainly the website, the domain name licences, the public liability
insurance – so we have to cover them or do something different. I know the website is considered
clunky – but it does give us a secure membership database and shop, as well as providing direct links to
our social media accounts so we don’t have to post things separately – they can be linked. We have
been fortunate the last 2 years to have had the 20 Years On events – certainly the one last May boosted
our coffers. Such a lot of organisation went into those events, not just from our side, but we are
indebted to Brendon Smurthwaite especially for having a very useful little black book of ex player
contact numbers and email addresses! I did pursue one avenue for sponsorship of the OSC but sadly, it
proved unsuccessful, it doesn’t however mean every door will close in the same way……. Surely, we can
find a Hull City supporting company who could put their name to our Score Prediction Competition
occasionally – we have done that before, so why not again? There are and will be other similar
opportunities, I’m sure.
Monthly quizzes at Sproatley contributed a large proportion of the £4,380.52 we raised for Tigers Trust
last calendar year – if you’ve not booked a table, you’re unlikely to get one as it’s still a very popular
night, the rest of the money came from pre match activities here and also our Last Man Standing
Competition which over the last season was tweaked to just concentrate on the Championship, rather
than all 4 top flight divisions of the PL and EFL. Not sure that everyone understood that, so Jan special
thanks for your patience in explaining the rules to some entrants!!
The pre-match sessions at the Tigers Trust Arena are always lively and fun, and we’re seeing good
numbers come in and returning over the season. Not often do we see away team supporters, but when
we do, they’re always made welcome and comment what a good facility we have here. We absolutely
do – thanks must go to Donna and her team for helping create such a fab atmosphere.
We’ve had a few changes over the season with match previewers – Elaine has been keeping them on
their toes and is looking for new volunteers so thanks to new Dad, Jason in Mexico, Hull City Fans
Forum’s Mark Walmsley, Lee Dolman and James Chezza / Hull KR Chestney. Just please please please be
mindful of copyright issues in anything and everything we publish on the website and social media.
We’ve had Olly Burdett helping with our graphics over the last year – unless we have an image whizz, I
suspect we’ll be calling upon his good nature again this season, but at least we have seen the new
season shirts now and can start thinking about what we want and can be reflective of 2025/26!
We have successfully staged 2 x Meet Hull City events – one night in Brough with the Player who turned
out to be voted the OSC Player of the Season (Ivor Pandur) who was even presented with a Panda – 2 of
the OSC Directors were presented with a nice juicy parking fine the same night! Big thanks to Humber
Wave Radio’s Adey Wright for compering that night, and a lot of hard work and planning for a night with
Kyle Joseph and Alfie Jones at the Goodfellowship Inn in Hull
Thanks once again to John D for being a superbly organised Events Director, to Jan for badgering old
and new recruits for our Last Man Standing competitions, and for trying to sell both sides of the raffle
ticket books pre-match here in the Arena bar, Will for being chief of finance and company secretary, to
Alex for doing what you can when you can on a media front, to John H for ensuring we have “ex Tiggers”
pre match, also to new helping hands Elaine and Skye who’ve helped massively on social media and the
website, to Tiff and Ava for taking on membership secretary duties over the last year – all 6 of whom
have had other stuff going on in their lives, so special thanks for carrying on regardless!
I had a count up, I am delighted and honoured to have been Chair of the OSC since May 2017 – it’s
definitely time for a change, but as we discussed last week, we are on a bit of a knife edge – but remain
keen to carry on, we just need the Club to support us wholeheartedly – a meeting has been requested! I
honestly would hate to see the OSC fold, I do think there is a supporter remit to fill and that “bringing
the club closer to the community” should remain at the heart of what we do – as to how – that’s not my
call now, though hopefully, I will be there to help out.
So finally, thank you all for your support and help during my tenure as Chair – as stated recently, I won’t
be like Alex Ferguson constantly watching in the background, but I am happy to guide and share my
knowledge and “wisdom” gained over the last 8 years (if you want it).
Up the Tigers.

We would like to express our gratitude and thanks to Kathryn for her hard work running the OSC over the past 8 years who has now stepped down as Chair. She will now take up the role of Vice-Chair.

We would like to welcome John Drinkall as our new Chair who was voted in at our AGM.