Bluebirds Trust Q&A

[tictactoe]

Away fans bar to the left of the burger van where the away fans stand

[blue nige]

Think paul cassons missed a trick he would make a great M.P.!

[Steeley]

Can someone ask what on earth is happening with the club shop and website situations?

[spirit of 1990]

Can someone ask what on earth is happening with the club shop and website situations?

If the question was posted/asked, we'll have asked it, if it wasn't, it wasn't.

There is one more part to the Q&A to come.

[Richard Ingham]

http://bluebirdstrust.co.uk/paul-casson ... ommercial/

Part three - Commercial is now online

[The Real Slim Azza]

image.png (124.77 KiB) Viewed 2232 times

I just can't agree with that.

If playerlayer seem to think those shirts are worth a tonne then they are taking the club for a ride.

The ones weve had for the past ten years have been the same as the players and have never been over £50.

Just not right at all.

[Steeley]

Thanks again for the updates.

Re the shirts, why are we paying such high prices for apparent 'elite' playing shirts? Doesn't make anyone play any better and certainly doesn't look any different to the replicas. Dropped a massive clanger with player layer. Its another example of chucking money away for no reason when it could go in the bank account, 'do you think we need the money?' Springs to mind.

The polo shirt situation which they are looking at.... Get some ordered, stick in the shop in time for Xmas, job jobbed.

[Adam29]

Theyve been to look at fleetwood etc regards commercial side.
The people they should of gone to see are in the same town and thats the rugby.
They are superb commercially and we wouldnt go far wrong copying how they do it

[The Real Slim Azza]

Can someone ask what on earth is happening with the club shop and website situations?

If the question was posted/asked, we'll have asked it, if it wasn't, it wasn't.

There is one more part to the Q&A to come.

They can't seem to sort the internet out up there apparantly. Been going on since Pre Season and won't be sorted till at least after xmas.

A business without a decent internet connection in this day and age should be worrying.

[The Real Slim Azza]

With regards the Gherkin Kit Launch


Were you satisfied with the feedback? Would you do it again?

No, it wasn’t about sponsorship, it was about publicity, launching the new kits and presenting an image

Very expensive is we didn't get anything out of it financially. Who received the image of the club? Have they been involved with us in any way since? Or did we just ply a load of business folk and family members with free food and drink for the night?

Yeah. It’s sort of a business thing: Back in the day, when Compaq was started off by three guys, their business premise was ‘we’re going to be competing with Bill Gates, Microsoft and all of these big guys and we’re going to position ourselves as a big company because we’re important’. So, when they started that company, they basically just pretended they were competing at the same level as Apple or IBM or any one of those companies, who were a lot bigger, and they did it. That’s how they promoted themselves, and they made themselves a brand. If you dream big, sometimes they happen.

So that was the whole point [behind the kit launch]: we have this big dream, this big image and so it’s all about putting yourself on the stage. It’s all about the image of the club; in terms of the players, so the players believe they’re playing for a big club; which means we can attract better players, we can attract better managers, we can attract better staff and we can attract bigger sponsors because they think the brand is bigger than itself, because the brand, these days has some value.

Why does it regularly seem like Paul has to compare us to a story he has come accross before. He comes accross as a bit of a politician at times in his answering of questions. The question was did they receive good feedback? and would they do it again? .

The problem with the statement above is we aren't globally recognised COMPAQ. We are a non league football club based in Cumbria where not many people in London are that bothered about, they probably couldn't locate us on a map is they were asked. COMPAQ's success isnt measured on kicking a football around and getting to the play offs of the Vanarama National League. Why do we need to announce ourselves to the world? How many newspapers/magazines/tv stations covered this HUGE event?

Surely if the club is to meet this "big dream" then we need to build off the pitch before we start aiming for play offs and paying players big money. How big is this dream? Premiership and European football big? Football is a harsh business and history has shown us that throwing money at it doesn't work 9 times out of 10. All this play off talk and talk about being back in the football league just seems a bit soon. What happens if we stay in this league for the next 5 years? Is that the dream over? What if that continues for a further 5 more? and we have a stadium being rebuilt and players on big money but the internet at the club still isn't sorted and the club shops selling XXXL conference north founder memebers t shirts. Where would we go from there?

It’s not just about somebody writing a cheque, it’s all about building the brand image. You build it one brick at a time, and that just happens to be a brick. You can’t measure it, it’s intangible. But what our point was is that Barrow is an undervalued brand, based on its history and its location and the fact we have this catchment area of about 200,000 people, with very little competition, which hardly any other club has.I mean, even Manchester United have a million different competitors, they just happen to be better at competing than everybody else.

Again, We aren't Manchester United. So why the reference? We are a million miles away from Manchester United.

Our location/geography is a benefit to us but, somehow, we want to hide it. We want to sort of use that as an excuse – “we can’t attract players because he’s got to drive.” What? It’s rubbish. So part of this whole thing is to get people over that. We’re going to be important.

If we offer a player £400 quid a week to come here from Manchester and a team closer to that players home offers him a similar or a little less then why would he come here? How many players have we had up sticks and move to Barrow In Furness in recent years? The only thing I think attracts players to this club at the moment is the pay packet. If you want to be the best with our location on the map then you have to over pay the players, more importantly you need to over pay the right players. Hence why weve got a lot of players on 2/3 year deals at the moment.

One of the reasons I bought this club was I heard somebody say “Barrow AFC was going to cut its cloth to exist in Conference North.” That’s not Barrow AFC. That’s not where this area deserves to be, we need to be in the Football League. That’s where we need to be and so that’s, basically, the whole point. And if it takes a ridiculous event at the Gherkin to demonstrate that we’re serious about going to where we’re going to be, then that’s what we’re going to do.

I completely understand that Paul Casson saved us from what could have been a sticky end adn I think we will all be forever grateful but I just feel we are rushing it a little bit. Why not aim to stay here for 5 years whilst we actually build the club towards a league return.

I think he summed the whole thing up perfectly there with the use of the word " Ridiculous ". I don't know how much it costs to hire a room and fill it with free food and champagne in one of the most expensive buildings in one of the most expensive cities in the world but if it was about launching a brand 300 miles away from where its being based then Im a bit concerned. I think the money used on this could have been put into more practical "brand awareness" something in our own area of operations. A working internet at the club for starters so we can reply to queries as they come in. A wage for someone to go around BAE, Dong Energy , Glaxo SmithKline, Kimberly Clark, Sellafield, Siemens and try to pick up business oportunities or schools and local football teams to get the next generation of fans in.

The whole point of this post is basically yes without Casson and his funding the club would be up the creek without the paddle and they would have lost the canoe about 2 miles down river.

I just don't want us to ever be in that situation again. So why all the rush? Weve been out of the football league now for many years? Why all of a sudden do we need to get there as soon as possible? Why all the play off talk and references to the football league ?

Unless its something to do with grants that you can get in the football league for the redevelopment of Holker St...........

[Steeley]

"Unless its something to do with grants that you can get in the football league for the redevelopment of Holker St..........."

Nailed it.

Were an Evo Stick club, with a load of conference players at the moment. We should bring the two to the same level before blowing our load on getting promoted at all costs.

[mickycarrol]

I thought November was the cut off for us minions to finally see some stadium plans, all seems to have gone a bit quiet on the redevelopment side of things?

[DaveP]

Football league clubs get a share of the pot probably enough to pay most of the wages

We can then also get substantial grants.

Both of these are business drivers to get in there asap.

[The Real Slim Azza]

Football league clubs get a share of the pot probably enough to pay most of the wages

We can then also get substantial grants.

Both of these are business drivers to get in there asap.

Yeah but what happens if we don't get there?

Or even worse we do get there and the club still isnt anywhere near ready for it?

[Steeley]

Football league clubs get a share of the pot probably enough to pay most of the wages

We can then also get substantial grants.

Both of these are business drivers to get in there asap.

Yeah but what happens if we don't get there?

Or even worse we do get there and the club still isnt anywhere near ready for it?

Clubs have spend millions upon millions trying to get out of this league, some have failed, some have disappeared completely, few have succeeded.

Of the way the club is being run what makes people think we will be on of the few to succeed?