The event sponsored by Coventry & Warwickshire 2012 Partnership saw the title "Football And Television - Is It Really Match Of The Day and produced a number of top class media giants.
The first up was Jim White,a writer in the Daily Telegraph and leading Journalist who gave an excellent speech. Jim spoke about some of the goal celebrations in the African Cup Of Nations and Real Madrid classing themselves as a "Deliverer Of Content" rather than a football club.
Football Consultation Alex Flynn followed. A man once described as the "Spiritual Godfather Of The Premier League", called for the introduction of an electronic away season ticket which would allow those who don't go to away games to watch all the games live on TV. He also felt that the the leagues should be reduced to twenty teams per division and football in the lower reaches regionalised.
Amanda Farnsworth who is the Editor of BBC TV Programme Inside Sport (hosted by Coventrian Gabby Logan), spoke about the problems in getting players on the programme and said that viewing figures increased (1.4m) when articles about football appeared on the show than when there was no football (700,000). The new series starts on February 18th at 10.35pm.
After lunch, Bradford City fan Roger Mosey,a Director Of Sport at the BBC, spoke about Match Of The Day which the Beeb have to pay £57.2m for as part of the television deal. A new deal comes into force next year and will show live Championship games and will have five minutes of action from all FL matches available on line at midnight.
He was asked about the decision to screen the Man City v West Ham game when Havant & Waterlooville against Swansea proved to be the far better choice. He did say that two anbd a half times more people watched Harrogate Railway v Mansfield than any Premiership game on SKY this season and that hindsight was a wonderful thing.
David Conn who writes for The Guardian and is famous for his books which take a hard hitting line at football and some of the things going on in it, spoke as a Manchester City supporter. A keen player who was fed up of the facilities he had to endure at grass roots level in Manchester, just two miles from Old Trafford, Conn gave a good speech which the many supporters in a packed audience in the Humber Theatre could identify with.
David left to good applause and was followed by Mel Stein. The Barnet supporter, is a lawyer and an agent. Known for having Paul Gascoigne on his books as well as Chris Waddle and Alan Shearer, he is also an adviser to clubs such as West Brom and Watford and spoke about players contracts.
With Setanta covering the Conference this season, he is an advisor to the Football Conference and spoke about the effect of some of the kick off times on match going supporters. He also spoke about the fact that players don't get paid for doing television interviews and in the multi-media age about goalscoring celebrations et appearing on sites such as You Tube.
Paul Fletcher finished off a very enjoyable event, used a dvd projector as part of his speech. The former City Managing Directors admitted that four businesses (Printing,Kitchen Centre, Removals and an Advertising Agency, he was involved with after playing all failed with one going into administration.
As a motivational speaker and using the motto of "Raising Your Game" to sell his idea, he stayed pretty well clear of the Sky Blues but did admit that he was proud of getting the stadium built.
In the questions after his speech, he admitted that only when did City wholly own the Arena, the club would then get the benefit but the only was to fill the stadium was to provide a winning team.
He is currently involved in a company called StadiArena which builds stadiums so that areas can be used for such things as concerts and grounds can be used seven days a week rather than the one day a fortnight most are now.
Part of this would be showing away games live, so the 95% of City supporters whom he claimed don't travel away with the Sky Blues could watch the game from their seat in the Ricoh Arena.
He was given polite applause as he ended his speech.