Walker and McTavish given Watford promotions (From Watford Observer)

Richard Walker and Alan McTavish given promotions by Watford

3:17pm Friday 1st February 2013 in Sport

Watford have promoted two of their existing members of staff to newly-created roles.

Former head of media Richard Walker is now head of supporter communications and sales. Plus Alan McTavish, who was head of partnerships, has been promoted to commercial director.

Walker, who first joined in 1999 before leaving the club for a brief spell and then returning, will be “adding accountability for the club’s ticket sales strategy to his existing marketing and communications remit”.

McTavish, who joined the Hornets in the summer from Glasgow Rangers, has a role which “adds all aspects of the club's commercial sales operations to the important task of building high-level partnerships at both client and supplier level”.

The club statement added: “The emphasis of the new role is to consolidate communication around all fans’ sales and service activity within a single team.

“Key to the position will be developing improved supporter engagement with a particular eye on taking views on important fan-impacting decisions - an example of which being the current Ticket Focus Group, set up as per a pledge from the November Fans Forum.”

The changes follow head of sales Chris Pope’s departure last Friday after less than three months at the club.