Club Interview – John Speirs, Disability Access Officer

Listen here 👆🏻

Youtube link – https://youtu.be/79SS7wzZV1s

Continuing on the recent access and open interviews with the club, Sarah and I, spoke with John Speirs who is the disability access officer for Rangers. The reason behind the conversation was to find out more about the changes at Ibrox specifically and why this was happening and exactly the plan to do it.

John spoke at the recent fans forum at New Edmiston House and explained in small detail but in this chat we cover extensively what changes will take place both in the short and long term at Ibrox.

John has twenty five years experience working in disabled rights and equality, it is his role at the club to work with disabled supporters and build the services the club currently offer.

As part of a three year plan Ibrox will undergo massive modifications to the Broomloan, Copland and Sandy Jardine stands. John describes this in detail and why we are doing this as a club.

The idea of this interview is to give supporters an inside into the type of access the club are providing, changes to the stadium and the time scale surrounding that. Whilst John is not an architect he was able to outline plans enough to give supporters an insight into the plans.

The club continue to want to be open and transparent to the supporters, this interview another example of the new ‘forward facing’ strategy.

We asked John the following questions –

Introduction, can you tell us exactly your roll in the club and your position?

What was your assessment of the club when you first joined Rangers and what exactly were your immediate priorities?

How has feedback been from the support and how has this shaped your focus?

What Experiences on travels do you have that you want to ensure does not happen at Ibrox?

Parking issues around the stadium.

In terms of changes to the ground, what has prompted this?

When will the changes to the stadium begin and what is the schedule?

What will it mean for the club?

Aside of the stadium changes, what other proposals for disabled access are aims of the club?

Finally, Broxi’s Den, a tremendous facility for Children with special needs, is their plans for further expansion or improvement of this?

You can listen to the full interview at the top of the page and hopefully this gives people an insight into changes at the stadium, the surrounding footprint and what the changes will mean for us all.

Supporters can contact John by email at disabilitymatters@rangers.co.uk.