UCC supporters club update
Seven of us turned up yesterday including a couple of the FourFiveOne lads. This was brilliant since terrible notice was given by me. Thanks to them again.
For what the meeting was yesterday, I thought, and I hope the others did too, it was very successful. Everyone present agreed on what the principle objective should be for a Student Supporters' Club i.e. to promote Cork City on campus.
UCC is a community of people with a population of 13000 approx and we were all agreed that this is a community that needs to be tapped into in an organised fashion.
Therefore we yesterday agreed on some provisional aims and methods by which these aims would be achieved:
AIMS
1 There needs to be a solid UCC Cork City FC Supporters Club fully ready well in advance of the 2004 season.
2 A UCC supporters club should work in conjunction with the other third levels in Cork i.e. promotional exercises and other support and ideas.
3 We would need to have a system in place whereby incoming first years from 2004-5 onwards are ready to join.
4 Also, between now and the end of the season as soon as we get Society Guild Clearance, some basic promotion of home games will be carried out such as posters etc.
METHODS
1 The university paper as well as Campus Radio, kindly suggested by Ruairi will be extremely handy devices by which we would promote ourselves in a variety of different ways.
2 A supporters club of this nature would also benefit from contribution/support offered to sporting clubs within the UCC network. e.g. The UCC soccer club run an annual football tournament called the Quarry Cup which is sponsored by Guinness - the possibilities of partnership of some shape or form are quite evident.
There is also the Pat Dolanesque option of wishing luck to clubs who reach finals etc. e.g when the hurlers go on the Fitzgibbon weekend, as much as it may pain some people (!!), a public indication of our hopes for their success could only be beneficial for our football clubs good name.
3 In much the same vein, UCC Societies that have a worthy cause or a political dimension (which would have to be acceptable to our members) could also raise Cork City Football Club in the estimations of a lot of students. e.g the St Vincent de Paul society or an Anti-Racism society etc.
Of course, we would avoid any opportunism and would treat people with more respect than to simply use them for our own ends.
In the short term, we need to sort all the beauracracy and once we have a clear path to this club's formation, we will announce a more structured preliminary meeting that will hopefully take place in 3 or 4 weeks time. This will be announced with better notice than the last time and will be a fuller, more productive occasion where everyone will know where we stand.
Thanks to everyone who has wished us luck/offered ideas etc.
I hope if anyone has thoughts on what I've just written that they please respond.
Enjoy Friday night, whoever is going.
John Riordan
