Members were sounded out about early bird season ticket prices at last night's first Wolves Fans Parliament meeting of 2009.

Club officials were keen to hear supporters' views before decisions were taken in the next couple of weeks.

Ticketing and membership manager Lynne O'Reardon stressed that early-bird prices hadn't risen for adults or seniors in four years and for juniors in seven. And she insisted the club would be sensitive to the economic situation.

Lynne said that there were 5000 season ticket holders - made up of supporters who renewed in the summer or who bought a half season ticket - who would have the opportunity to buy a ticket more cheaply next season: "2,300 fans have bought half season tickets this winter, mainly because they wanted to benefit from early bird. It's a very compelling message that 5,000 fans could next season be watching their football more cheaply at Molineux, regardless of what league we are in."

Chris Cox took the fact that Molineux isn't full every week as a sign that the club shouldn't hike prices at all and to reduce them in some cases, particularly for juniors.

Chief Executive Jez Moxey argued, though, that the average £15 Chris currently pays per game in the Stan Cullis Stand was 'an outstanding offer, one of the cheapest, if not the cheapest, in the league."

And Matt Grayson reminded the meeting that 30% of home Championship games this season were effectively free to those who took advantage of last year's early bird.

Mark Cadman was told it would not be possible for participants to spread the cost between the launch date and July. "When we launched early bird, it was as a four-week window that was a gamble on both sides," Lynne added. "It's a cash-raising initiative for the club. If payment is deferred over six months, we aren't going to be getting some money until September. But it's worth saying the Wolves credit card is still available and that has 0% finance."

Jez said no business could realistically hold prices for six or seven years but no decision had yet been made. He found support from Roger Fellows, who said: "On inflationary grounds alone, there should be an increase," he said. "It would not be unreasonable for the club to effect increases this year."

Kulbinder Kular again said he was unhappy that those turning 17 and still in full-time education would have to pay full price as the club didn't offer the student discounts some clubs did. "How will my kids get their season ticket next to family members without paying through the nose? Their loyalty won't have been rewarded and they won't be able to sit where they want match-by-match if we go up - because 7-8,000 fans are likely to come out of the woodwork in that case."

Jez: responded: " Lynne and I have done a lot of work and it's uneconomical to do the 17-20 ticket. There are 213 who are affected this year as they move from under 17 to 17
and another 900 who fall into the 17-21 category who would lose us a large six-figure sum if we introduced a special price for that group."

A lot of students still renew as they turn 17, the club argued, and Jez suggested that a change now would be unfair on students who had experienced this rise in previous years. "We have to have our own policies," he said. "We do many things better than other clubs. We have saved our fans millions in total over seven years. The early bird cost us £1.6m-£1.7m in our Premiership season alone. It's easy to say every club should do deals for students but not every club has the early bird, although a lot are now following us."

To Mike Taylor's assertion that some students were worse off buying season tickets than paying match-by-match, Jez said there were also other benefits to be had, like having your own seat each game and not having to regularly phone to book.

Lynne said that a sustained attempt to attract students brought into the city by their studies had been disappointing, with only five uptakes at a cut-price £5 for the home game against Colchester last season.

Peter Bagley said he felt the credit crunch would hit football next year, rather than this, and warned: "Fans will put themselves out in the Premiership but not the Championship. They won't pay above the odds in the Championship." Robert Anslow said increasing prices in the corporate areas, where he felt business was low this season, was also a gamble.

Jon Maslen-Jones said the economy would determine whether people renewed, not the hike itself - something meeting chairman Matt Grayson said Wolves were mindful of. Les Hughes said he thought fans would accept a 2-3% hike.

Jez said there couldn't be refunds for fans who lost their jobs later in the year, otherwise the club were moving away from the early-bird concept of effectively locking supporters in for the
season.

TICKETS FOR MIDDLESBROUGH TIE

James Fielden asked why prices for Saturday's tie were at normal levels - something Les Hughes said he couldn't afford. Matt Grayson said the club had looked at the stature of opposition and the fact the last time Wolves faced Premiership opposition was Manchester United three years ago.

Lynne O'Reardon's estimate of a 19-23,000 crowd depending on how the weather affected the walk-up prompted Jez Moxey to believe that the club's decision was justified.

UNRULY BEHAVIOUR

Matt Grayson said the Wolves 4 Family Football scheme had been a huge success, although a number of complaints had been received about other fans swearing and behaving aggressively. He said the club would be considering a number of measures but the best option was for fans to take personal responsibility.

Kulbinder Kular said it was impossible to completely cut out smoking at Molineux - a point raised by Ryan Leister and Chris Cox - and it was surely impossible to eradicate swearing. Jez felt it would be irresponsible not to tackle it and insisted such conduct was against the Football League's initiative to improve the match-day experience. Jas Sidhu said 'Rover' ticket holders who were moved on occasions from the Jack Harris Stand could be put in the Stan Cullis Stand.

Georgina Savage believed there was a respect problem, as evidenced by Wolves fans standing up at every away game. Sally Hanbury reported an argument at the last home game which resulted in a supporter chasing another out of the ground, swinging him round by the arm and challenging him aggressively. "We will investigate," Jez promised. "It's the sort of hooligan behaviour we want to eradicate."

BOOKING FEES

Georgina Savage said fans already disappointed by the recent postponement at Birmingham were appalled when told their booking fee wasn't refundable. Lynne said 240 people had had tickets refunded but it cost the club money to refund booking fees - an element Jez said was now commonplace in other walks of life.

PARKING

Wheelchair user Darren Cash explained that he made a 140-mile round trip for home games and has to be at Molineux two hours before kick-off to ensure a spot on the Goal Post pub car park. He had then seen able-bodied fans alighting cars using disabled places behind the Stan Cullis Stand.

Anne Pearce also highlighted the abuse of the system and Jez promised: "It illustrates the challenges we as a club face. It's abhorrent and we'll stop it. I personally will take an interest in it."

Gerry Collins said he paid for a parking pass for the season near The Feathers pub and hadn't been told that he would have to move for certain games; an irritation increased by the long wait in getting away on one occasion.

TRANSFER WINDOW

Jez Moxey reported that the club had pulled out of the Alan Gow signing over fears that he could have broken down at any time. He said Mick McCarthy's recruiting of forwards had finished for now with the loan of Kyel Reid. He added that another signing was imminent and possibly another beyond that.

To James Fielden's enquiry about the Mark Davies situation, he said: "It hasn't changed. He has been injured for a very long time and it's best for him to beout playingand he is doing very well at Leicester City." Dave Bissell voiced concerns that he might leave when his contract ends but was told: "He has been here since 11 or 12 and we want him to be a Wolves player for a very long time."

Jez told Chris Cox that going up was the priority rather than worrying about how to stay up. He acknowledged a possible lack of older heads in the squad which the player-seeking process was taking into account.

John Meaney was told by the Chief Executive that there hadn't been any rejected offers and none of the star players - "you know the 14-17 players I'm talking about" - would be sold in this window.

To a question by Mike Taylor as to Jason Shackell's prospects, he said Mick McCarthy had to judge players irrespective of cost, which was why fees were now undisclosed. "Ideally, you want two players for every position. It's up to Jason to get in and stay in."

Wilf Hadley was informed Jody Craddock might be sent on loan to further his comeback from injury, if that's what the player wanted.

ITEMS BROUGHT FORWARD

Lynne told Kulbinder Kular that the intercom in the ticket office, which he felt could broadcast private details to others, was vital on match-days but wouldn't be used at quiet times.

Jez reported that Molineux Alley might reopen before the end of the season and would facilitate better movement to and from the stadiumand hopefully ease some of the congestion around the underpass over the past couple of seasons.

CATERING

The first part of the meeting was spent discussing Wolves' match-day catering by Lindley, who were represented by Area Manager Gavin Fisher and Stadia Manager Mark Bailey.

Mark, based full-time at Molineux, said up to 4,000 pies and 45,000 hot drinks were served among a total of some 10,000 transactions each match-day, 80 per cent of them at half-time.

He said the main difference between Molineux and Coventry's much newer Ricoh Arena was that there were wider concourses at the latter, so queuing was easier and service quicker. Gavin said the spend-per-head was much higher at Stoke and other grounds, where they could therefore offer more choice. The Britannia Stadium was out of town, so fans arrived earlier too.

Ryan Leister recalled an instance of no cheese and onion pies at half-time and there were reports of Balti pies selling out. Gerry Collins revealed how a scuffle had broken out in the Jack Harris Stand when there was no food available, so why couldn't items be moved from one stand to another. Gavin said: "There are restrictions moving products because you have to maintain a certain temperature. We could have a risk of poisoning otherwise. We can move Bovril via runners but we can't take pies from one stand to another. Only twice on a single bar, though, have we had no pies left at the end of games.

"We have managers in the stand assessing whether demand is changing, because of, say, the weather. They know that 30 per cent of purchases are made before kick-off and 70% after it, so, if more than expected goes before kick-off, we will top up during the first half."

Mark added: "It's hard to replenish if you run out five minutes before the second half starts. We're putting our team leaders through an NVQ course in customer service and part of that is aimed at saying that you may have run out of one item but had a good substitute. I've never sold out of pies in the stadium - only in a certain unit."

Jez Moxey said Wolves had considered reducing the choice of pies to two. "Lindley's ideal is for the last pie to go to the last customer in the queue. They would have to build in for more wastage if we asked that they never ran outwhich would be uneconomical but generally speaking there should be pie stock available for fans to buy and we never want to run out completely."

The meeting heard that most match-days employees were casual labour and Gerry Collins said staff were fine.

Health and safety was important according to Roger Fellows, who said the Billy Wright Upper concourses were very congested at half-time because of people standing and drinking orqueuing for the toilets. "Service is quite often pretty slow," he said - and drew agreement from Terry Brearley. "A lot of people don't go for refreshments because it's so busy. There's almost a case for having these things ready to hand over to save half a minute each time. If people pre-order, you could offer them cheaper and it would be easier to monitor when items were selling out."

James Fielden also suggested pre-paying and receiving a voucher for later but Mark said having items ready had been trialled and customers had handed them back saying they wantedfresh.

Jez said: "We're looking at various cash-less systems but there's a massive difference between the theatre and football if you're three down and it's bucketing down! If you then ran out or the queue gets stuck, there would be pandemonium. The concourses and size of units are the real problem. In our stadium redevelopmentdiscussions, I've made it clear to the designersthat I don't want average concourse space - I want industry best."

Jez underlined that the switch to bottled beer was because fans didn't want drinks pre-pouredand that they can be dispensed more quickly.James Fielden recalled that at some grounds, one person would pour and another take money.

Lindley were asked to consider their policy of not opening all units after Mark said that crowd estimates sometimes made taking on extra workers uneconomic. "Since Christmas, we have opened all the units at the top level, whatever the crowd," he said.

Ryan Leister was told that demand was so slight after games that it wouldn't make sense to keep them open for fans leaving the stadium. There was also the danger of food going off.

John Meaney, who sits in the Steve Bull Upper, was told that each unit had a "par" level of sales as part of monitoring. Georgina Savage revealed that she knew a group of 20-30 who now arrived in the stadium later because they preferred draught beer and objected to Molineux prices. Mark answered: "The decision to take out the draught wasn't taken lightly. It was to speed things up and because the quality is always the same. We've seen an increase in salesbecause we can sell bottles more quickly compared to pouring pints."

Kulbinder Kular said shelves outside the toilets made queuing worse but Jez said they were there for the comfort of fans eating and drinking and the congestion problem came back to the concourses being too small, except in the Steve Bull Lower.

Gerry Collins proposed that Lindley used Wolves 4 Family occasions to make special offers on refreshments. Martyn Edwards said a lot of the chocolate was king-sized and fans would prefer smaller. But Gavin said: "We can't have a massive range of any one item. We have done researchand found family bags of sweets and large bars are most popular."

In response to John Meaney saying fans found some of the items expensive, Jez said there had been no complaints about pricesand that it is club policy to set food prices that were not the cheapest, but not the most expensive either.

OTHER BUSINESS

Wilf Hadley said he felt this week's Ujpest friendly was poorly publicised and Les Hughes thought there should have been a minute's silence at the home game against Burnley, although the club, including the players, chose to show its respects on November 11 instead.

Les also said the crowds announced at Molineux appeared inaccurate but was told by Lynne O'Reardon that such figures were absolutely spot-on - and based on seats sold rather than used.Jez said as many as 10% of season ticket holders didn't turn up at any game.