Some more suggesions for the club......
An article from www.peoplesrepublicofcork.com
Fair Weather Supporter
It's rare that I get the opportunity to go to a Cork City FC game and I decided to make it over to Turner's Cross today to see the team stamp all over relegated Monaghan Utd's pride in a comfortable 5-1 trouncing. As the match became a delightfully one-sided affair my mind wandered slightly from the game. Looking around the stadium I wondered why there was such a low attendance. For Cork's biggest football club with a 10,000 capacity ground, it was the last home game of the season and yet hardly a soul was to be seen...
To be honest I hadn't been to a game in ages. You see it's easy for those fiercely loyal supporters to condemn the "fair-weather-folk", slamming the lack of local pride and the interest in foreign football. Like an alco at an AA meeting I hold up my hand. I am a fair-weather supporter. I admire the loyalty and support the hardcore give the club and can understand why they dislike people like me but hear me now: I'm not a fanatic, I simply like to see a decent game of football. One thing is for sure, for all the Champions League games you might watch on telly, nothing can compare to the atmosphere of actually being at a game. Whether you are a Cork City FC virgin or a fair-weather feen this is what makes going to a CCFC match worthwhile, believe me! Being at a decent game absolutely ****es on a premiership-in-the-pub atmosphere ten times out of ten. Right in front of me I watched Noel Hartigan slot home his second of the afternoon : all around me the Shed erupted into cheering and song, taunting the smart-ass Monaghan keeper as he picked the ball out of the net. Pure suround sound - very satisfying.
Anyway to be honest it's not hard to figure it out why the numbers are low. I thought there must be thousands of people (like myself) who wouldn't mind combining a bit of Cork pride with watching a game of football. I love football. I'm passionate about being from Cork. So why don't I and thousands like me go to games more often?
SELF-PROMOTION DISASTER
Well first of all it's not obvious when games are on. Where are the posters? Up the road at Musgrave Park Sunday's Well and Dolphin Rugby Clubs have big signs saying when, where and against whom the next home game is. What about a couple of massive billboards by the Kinsale Road roundabout with the time for next home game? What about a big red consistent quarter page advert in the Echo, with the next home game details on a given page the night before the game?
What about posters in all the sports stores? Take Ludgate-O'Keeffe Sports Shop as one example. There are posters for everything from kick boxing and martial art tournaments to hockey matches and darts competitions. Pubs, bars and restaurants should be targeted. Why just advertise in The Horse Shoe Bar and to the Ballyphehane and Turner's Cross communities? I'm far from a marketing expert but if you want attention, you have to go and get it and not sit on your hole and HOPE people notice you.
What about the players? I find myself in the strange and somewhat embarrassing position of probably being able to name Manchester United's and Leeds' usual starting eleven - despite being a "non-supporter" of any English football club- but not the first team of Cork City. Why? Because the British ******s are in the newspapers every week and not just for football. "BECKHAM CAUGHT WITH SLAPPER" , "WOODGATE SMASHES ASIAN FACE", "ALAN SMITH TAKES IT UP THE ASS" etc. Turn the Cork players into local celebrities. I'd love to walk into a shop and see a Sun headline like "MY NIGHT OF PASSION WITH PATSY FREYNE" - Sinéad from Popstars reveals all. Okay, I'm sure you know what I actually mean. Let's hear their names in the media a bit more, interviews, advertising... Go around teaching skills in schools, I don't know....
PACKED-OUT GAMES
Once the queues outside the ground become unbearable(!) the focus should be on making Turner's Cross the most friendly & festive ground in Ireland or Britain and the most intimidating for away teams. I was a few minutes late for the start but I don't think I heard a single announcement over the P.A. for the whole game. What about finding the person with the funniest and most dramatic Cork accent and letting them do the announcements?
Half-time was completely dead and God knows I could be here all day suggesting things. But haul out Mayfield Brass Band at the very least and get them to play a few football songs (here we go, Olé Olé, Hey Jude shouldn't be beyond them). Drive down Paul St. on a Saturday with a net and grab a about ten bongo players and shove them up at the St. Anne's End. All the coin throwers in the crowd would love it and the Crusties would make enough for a new pair of sandals each. A few fire eaters/jugglers/dressed-up mascots/balloons for the kids would go a long way (and if they've any change left a couple of Angels' employees could make their way up into The Shed to make a saucy couple of quid!)
THE FOOTBALL
Finally there's the football. Today I looked around the ground and as they say "all credit to the sponsors" but with the likes of Duhallow Aluminium and PVC it's obvious that the money just simply isn't there to buy or indeed hold onto decent players. How about some decent sponsorship from major corporations? What about all the multi-national chemical companies in the harbour for example? And of course (new-to-Ireland) Vodaphone's colours are red and white, so are Red FM's and they're both publicity in themselves. What about getting text messages about when Cork City games are on or ads on the radio? If 50 texts brought one person in the gate it would pay off. More cash, better players and more results.
What I've written is obviously wide open to being heavily battered by the loyal (and more knowledgeable) CCFC fan (not to mention marketing gurus) but while these are just some vague yet sincere suggestions from a fair-weather supporter I think I do have the advantage of being currently less passionate and consequently more objective. What stared me in the face today more than anything was that Cork City FC really do have the potential to become a massive club (Ireland's Man City? -ed.) with not just a huge atmosphere but the best atmosphere in the league. The population and the money is out there, getting them both through the gates of Turner's Cross is the challenge. I'd love to wake up of a Sunday morning genuinely looking forward to going over to Turner's Cross instead of having some sort of stupid guilty feeling about "showing the head".
