Dec 17
ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS is for YOU and your Family, Friends and Contacts to go to http://www.littleorangechristmastree.co.uk/stores-family/ and click. PLEASE.
For every response @StAnnsHospice will get between 10 and 50 pence! x #LOCT A beneficiary that we have previously supported and worthwhile, local cause. Come on County!
Liking this story when an eBay, Charity auction was instigated with full expectation that one of the Manchester Giants might be highest bidder. The deal, one that the winner could nominate this little person’s choice of football team to follow. The actual top amount was from a County fan and we now have another supporter. See earlier video below.
Some great publicity for the Club and a clear message portrayed that there is life outside the EPL!
There was the usual anti-SKY TV rhetoric that has surrounded lower league football this Weekend – including the one in which my team now plays. I recall one along the lines to a chorus of “you can stick your SKY remote up………….”. Naiive to blame for County’s downfall but good humoured fans’ banter amongst this direction of abuse.
The political football is out again with Labour acting out a vision for supporter engagement and ownership. Lip service or manifesto we’ll have to wait and see. When all demise is discussed, ITV Digital is the butt of all ridicule. Without defending them, the demise of that programming forced many a club into unforseen cashflow crises, but the ownership and management of clubs must share some joint-responsibilities. The latter remain challenges in many a football enterprise – and don’t get me going on the Fit and Proper Person Test. There cannot be many a net with more holes in!
Debate on media in Europe has recently been in the limelight and I introduce a debate from our European counterparts so you can all have a view on whether models are more suited elsewhere?
Sportel Monaco 2014 | European Football: Winning Media Strategies
The Guardian has said: “At the height of concern over financial meltdown at Portsmouth, Liverpool and elsewhere in 2010, the coalition talked about empowering fans. Fourteen clubs – including Portsmouth and Swansea – have become wholly or partly fan-owned, but despite the promises Whitehall has done little to encourage the trend. Labour insists this time will be different, vowing to legislate early in a new parliament.”
The overriding messages appear to share the common belief that ‘Football is more than a business, and fans are more than customers’. If progress is to be made on this stance, which can only be correct – surely media must become more under the microscope. I never forget the statement that for many, after religion, football and loyalty to a team’s brand is often the second strongest bond in a person’s life, outside the family. New media models should be investigated.
‘Ice bucket challenge’. We’ve all heard of it and what a simple concept to gain engagement amongst fans, secure momentum and viral penetration and assist a worthy cause in the meantime. Initially, the initiative was to benefit myotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) but latterly participants have chosen either this or an alternative closer to their hearts. Surely, there are methods in this madness that can apply in a sports of football setting. I for one can see how the same ideology might help a team in crisis, or fundraising appeal. It combines action, visuality, ‘pain’ (or theatrical undertaking), satisfaction on achievement and most of all money.
Celebrities in the football weren’t slow to join in…and why not it’s infectious. Below are a few that caught my attention – and yours truly took part of course not wanting to be left out!
Mesut Ozil
Lionel Messi
Jose Mourinho
Moi
Mario Balotelli
Steve O’Halloran
Arda Turan
Burak Yilmaz
S'PORT |blogging on football, finance and fans 