Nice Story, Nice Club?

By Neil Ravenscroft
November 7 2002

The Club gets a lot of stick for its relationship with the fans, and I have seen many complaints on the fan sites about PR. It makes me wonder, then, why, when they get things right sometimes, they can't do it all of the time?

I have a friend, Steve, who had a story to tell at the game last weekend of how the club can get things right, when it tries.

It was his Dad’s 80th birthday recently and, as he has been following the Saddlers since his first visit to Fellows Park in 1928 (yes, he was at that Arsenal game), he thought it would be nice for him to get a card from the club, signed by the players.

When he rang the ground, however, they said that there were set times each week for the players to participate in this sort of thing and it was too late. He, a little disappointed, said that this was a shame, and mentioned that his father had been a supporter for 72 years. The woman he spoke to (unfortunately, he didn’t ask her name) said that, in the circumstances, she’d see what she could do.

She asked him if he had bought a card already, which he hadn’t, but knew that they sold them in the Club Shop. She said she would choose one for him and then try to catch the players when they came in for lunch.

Imagine his surprise when he duly received the card, complete with a dozen or so signatures from the first team squad. The woman he had been speaking to, knowing that footballer’s signatures are usually unintelligible, had even gone to the lengths of supplying a key to which was which!

I always thought that club staff like that were only employed by Harchester United and am glad of the opportunity to give the staff at Bescot a well deserved pat on the back. Well done, all round.

However, it does beg the question as to why, if they can get things this right, do they make some terrible PR foul ups at others, such as being on the radio inviting people to turn up for the Shrewsbury game, only to have not enough ticket windows open to cope!