A fairly good year

As the season draws to a close, with WFC seemingly safe from relegation for another year, it seems an appropriate time to review off-the-field activities that have taken place as well as to consider where progress still has to be made with respect to public relations and customer satisfaction. While the team has unfortunately not progressed in the last 12 months, fortunately a number of improvements have been made off the pitch. This season saw the opening of the new Pryce Griffiths Stand and it was pleasing to see the club stage an Open Day which enabled supporters to inspect the new facility as well as getting a chance to look behind the scenes. The day was marred by bad weather unfortunately, which hit the attendance, but also by a lack of publicity in the local media. While regular fans were informed of the event, it was not widely publicised, and one steward on the day told me that he’d taken it upon himself to phone Marcher Sound that morning and get it advertised on the radio! Structural improvements that have taken place include a refurbishment of the Sainsburys Stand toilets to complement the new PGS facilities and the new Kop WCs of a couple of years ago. The improvements to the Yale toilets were well overdue and while not up to the standard of many we encounter at away grounds, they are now at least reasonably adequate, even if there is still no hot water. Also ‘improved’ this season, has been the tannoy system, allegedly. Now, I don’t know about anyone else but standing where I do at the rear of the Kop, I personally can’t tell any difference between the new ‘improved’ system and the old one. I still have to venture out from under the Kop roof to make out the 50/50 draw announcements and any other key announcements. This is not really surprising when the new speakers resemble those loud-hailers that you find at school sports events: not really up to the job of producing a clear quality sound, but still an improvement on the old horn-type mechanism that quite frankly went out with the ark. If you want to hear a good sound system at a football ground you need venture no further than Deepdale, where PNE have installed an excellent quality system with crystal-clear sound. Unfortunately, as we probably can’t afford anything better, I suspect we’ll have to make do with what we’ve got.

One of the main gripes of supporters has always been that the club does not seem to be coming up with any initiatives to encourage new fans along to the Racecourse. This season they have finally answered their critics by offering two ‘kid for a quid’ days (which had some effect on boosting attendances on those days) as well as letting juniors in free for FAW games. The club also supports the encouragement of schoolchildren via both the Football in the Community scheme and RP’s own initiatives by providing discounted tickets. Next season I would like to see the ‘kid for a quid’ scheme extended. It’s a fact that new fans are more likely to be encouraged when the team is showing a bit of form, and hopefully next year any PR initiatives will be reinforced on the pitch where a good season will go a long way to encouraging people to return. 

Paul Lindsay

It is now Red Passion’s policy to forward copies of this regular PR column to the club in the hope that it may feel able to respond to matters raised. So, the club has just received photocopies of the PR columns published in RP Issues 13-19. Watch this space!