Football Fling

Steve Mingle

Description

When Steve Mingle's financial services company was pulled out of the hat as shirt sponsor at League Two Oxford United in 2013, it sparked a crazy period for the fanatical football follower - for as well as becoming closely involved with the U's, Steve is also a long-standing Manchester City season-ticket holder. Frequently faced with the emotional torment of trying to be in two places at once, A Football Fling tells the story of two hectic seasons spent following teams at opposite ends of the spectrum - from Accrington to Anfield, from Burton to Barcelona, from Mansfield to Munich. Having been granted complete behind-the-scenes access at Oxford, Steve compares every aspect of his two clubs - players, management, finances, engagement with the local community, media interaction, youth development - to provide a unique insight into how football really operates - and whether having your company name on a team's shirts can be good for business!

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Memoir

Informations

• Publié par: Pitch Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 30 septembre 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781785311093
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2015
Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Durrington
BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
Steve Mingle, 2015
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the Publisher.
A CIP catalogue record is available for this book from the British Library
Print ISBN 978-1-78531-056-0
eBook ISBN: 978-1-78531-109-3
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Contents
Introduction
June/July 2013
August 2013
September 2013
October 2013
November 2013
December 2013
January 2014
February 2014
March 2014
April 2014
May 2014
June/July 2014
August 2014
September 2014
October 2014
November 2014
December 2014
January 2015
February 2015
March 2015
April 2015
May 2015
A Fling Finale
Photographs
Introduction
14 May 2013. It s 5pm on a normal working day. Which means that not much work is getting done. I receive an e-mail from Paul, my business partner, headed Oxford United Shirt Draw . It says, simply, Fancy a punt? I look at the details and see that local businesses are being offered the chance to take part in a raffle to become Oxford s shirt sponsors for the forthcoming season. It costs a grand to enter. Paul s got the e-mail, not because of our business, which as a two-man outfit is far too small to be on the Club s radar screen, but because he s the chairman of, and driving force behind, Stonesfield Strikers, his local village s youth football club. With 12 teams, the mighty Strikers are one of the region s most successful and highly regarded grassroots clubs - and are a community partner of Oxford United.
I don t have any particular affinity for Oxford United but, unusually for me, no aversion towards them either. Like Paul, I m football-daft and it would be quite something to see our company logo on a proper team s shirts. We already sponsor three of the Stonesfield teams, but this is a small gesture of support for the local community, rather than an investment made in the expectation of benefitting our business.
I reply instantly to his e-mail. Why not? with, as an afterthought, Great idea on their part, by the way. Can t imagine we ll win, but I ve no problem supporting such a smart initiative.
I don t give it too much more thought, and a couple of weeks later I m away on holiday when I get a text from Paul saying, We are the selected away shirt sponsors for Oxford United!!! How cool is that? Goal highlights on Sky and BBC every other week. Maybe even a live game. Shirts with our company name across the front in the club shop. Fans flocking in droves to away games in shirts bearing the legend Isinglass Consulting .
At first, all I can think about is the buzz we ll get out of seeing our name here, there and everywhere. But the broader picture soon comes into view. We ve just acquired tens of thousands of pounds worth of advertising for an outlay of a grand. We ve got a potential new customer base, the vast majority of whom - if not absolutely all of them - don t know us from Adam. And it s not just the 5-6,000 who regularly attend home games who ll be within reach, it s everyone with an interest in the Club and who follow its fortunes via the website, local press and other media.
At the very least we ll be having loads of fun over the next year. At best, we ll be having loads of fun and seeing some tangible business benefits. But how do we go about it? We can hardly expect people to start putting work our way just because they see our name on a football shirt, so what opportunities can we realistically expect to generate, and how will the Club help us? How will we fit Oxford United into our already busy lives? And, most of all, will we end up as passionate and committed Oxford fans, or will it be just a one season stand, with the Club erased from our memories the morning after the season s over?
June/July 2013
A BIT of background. We re a two-man business, set up in 2007, and our main activity is to advise companies on pensions and pay. You wouldn t call it exhilarating. But we ve made a decent fist of it, and are proud of what we ve achieved. It certainly beats working for a big company, which is what both of us did for many years before taking the plunge and doing our own thing.
Pensions is not an industry notable for generating raw excitement for those of us unfortunate enough to work in it, so we keep ourselves sane by indulging in a few alternative activities, notably running corporate events - quizzes, gameshow nights, team-building days and the like. We enjoy doing this so much that we re in the process of setting up a separate company specifically to provide this service. We ve worked together on and off, mostly on, for the last 13 years, and are quite definitely mates first, business partners second. We re both football fanatics. I ve been a Manchester City season ticket holder for donkeys years, at last getting some kind of compensation for the decades of pain, suffering and ridicule. Which naturally means that I loathe and detest Manchester United.
Funnily enough, Paul happens to be a Manchester United fan. He s a typically intermittent season ticket holder, a self-confessed glory-hunter, picking and choosing his seasons according to how well he thinks they ll do. Somehow, our divergent allegiances have never damaged our personal or professional relationship, even if people who don t know us too well might occasionally think otherwise. The flow of insults and abuse between us is pretty much relentless.
The day after we win the draw, Paul s invited into the Club for a photoshoot and to discuss marketing options. We immediately get plenty of coverage in the Oxford Mail and on the club website. And Paul is presented with a hastily assembled brochure detailing the range of advertising and promotional opportunities, and their associated costs. You can feel his enthusiasm bursting through the e-mail on my laptop screen. He s had a fantastic day, they ve treated him as if we d paid the full whack for the sponsorship deal rather than just being the jammy winners of a 1,000-entry fee raffle. I m having a great break in France, but can t wait to get back and become immersed in it all.
We meet up a few days later and look through the options. Pitch-side advertising hoardings, concourse ads, Oxford Mail flyers, e-mail campaigns to some 35,000 folk on the club s contact list, website ads, match programme advertising. There s a temptation to go for the lot, to enjoy the sight of Isinglass Consulting here there and everywhere. But we need to keep our business heads on. What we offer is pensions advice to companies. Out of the 5,000 or so folk who regularly attend Oxford s home games, how many of them will be in a position to commission our alleged expertise? Quite possibly zero. Most certainly very few. But there might be some potential buyers on the club s list of contacts.
We need to make a basic decision. Do we just stick with the shirt sponsorship and enjoy it while it lasts or do we really go for it, work closely with the Club and make a concerted effort to take advantage of our luck? Can we realistically expect to reach people who are genuinely interested in what we have to offer? Do we have the time to commit to making the effort?
We decide to go for it. We were never going to do anything else. Let s get stuck in and see where it takes us. We go for the advertising hoardings, the concourse ads and the website banners. Hoardings for the general name awareness, and the kick of seeing our logo in a prominent place at home games and on TV highlights. The concourse ads will enable us to provide a bit more detail about exactly what we do, and we know we ll be capable of putting together some eye-catching stuff. We ll position the ads in a mix of locations between the stands and the corporate entertainment areas. And in order to provide maximum reach in generating name-awareness, we go for the website banner.
There s plenty of scope to look at other options as the season rolls on, but we ve already put our stake in the ground. We really want to work with the Club and get actively involved in how we promote ourselves. And, inevitably, we ll become Oxford United fans. I ve always taken an interest in other teams as well as City - in particular following my local non-league team wherever I live, currently the mighty Magpies, Maidenhead United - so it won t feel too strange to have another team to support. Getting to matches won t always be easy, but Sky s frequent rescheduling of City games should create plenty of opportunities for weekend double-headers - Oxford on Saturday, City on Sunday. And with so many more league games to fit in down in League 2, there should be a good few midweek games as well. Things should be a bit easier for Paul, as his prescient disapproval of David Moyes s appointment means that this will be a year where he gives up his season ticket, so he ll have unlimited opportunities to see our new team. And hopefully he ll see the light and be converted for life.
* * * * *
The first big question is what the shirt will look like. The colours and style have already been decided - in conjunction with Nike, no less - and we re shown the design, in strictest confidence. We both think it s a belter. It s purple with a vertical white stripe down the left, and a counterbalancing white stripe on the opposite sleeve. It s highly distinctive, and all we need to do is agree on how our logo will look. Our corp