This, my second Braehead Blog comes an hour or so after The Clan ended up with a 4 point weekend in the Elite league, taking them to 5th in the table. With 4th placed Nottingham Panthers sitting on 63 points after a 5-1 win at Coventry, you would expect it to be as high as Clan will climb in their debut season.
A mid table finish and a place in the play-offs guaranteed, to me at least seems like a very decent return for a first attempt. Had the slump of November/December not been as...slumpy, then who knows, 4th may have been a realistic position. Nonetheless, finishing 5th would be no disgrace in this league.
At a time when the West Coast/ Central Belt sports media will be discussing everything green and blue for the next week to fortnight, it would seem unlikely that the progress that the Clan have made in their formative season will gain much coverage. Even with the record breaking win over (an albeit "weakened") Edinburgh Capitals, nothing more than a paragraph will likely be dedicated to The Purple Army this weekend.
Perhaps due to being formed within the confines of the countries biggest footballing population, much like the Caps and their egg chasing city compatriots, the promotion of the Braehead clan has suffered. There is no hiding the evidence that football dominates our papers and news reports, leaving Ice Hockey, as well as other sports to be bracketed as "minority" interest.
To be fair, the EHL and Sky Sports do a great job of promoting the sport on a national basis, with the weekly highlights show and the live games they put on. But on a more Braehead related level, the promotion of the franchise has not been very well publicised.
I'm not bashing the efforts of those at the Clan who deal with such matters. I know that in a first year of operation, a lot is involved in the on and off ice running of the club, and this initial start up season will be a learning curve for all involved. For next season though, I would like to see a more focussed promotional media attack for the club.
More recently, steps have been taken to spread Clan awareness, with the appearance on Radio Scotland a few weeks back, along with the Ice Skating nights at Christmas in Ayrshire. By using the facilities at X-Scape to hold events where the squad are involved as well as the forums, allowing fans to speak to the club have also gone down very well.
However, these have only really been of interest to those already interested in The Clan. Having just moved back to Lanark from Glasgow, I am only aware of the advertising for the team in those locales. Certainly in Glasgow, I spotted the occasional emblazoned Smart car or flier at the TicketMaster concession in Buchanan Galleries, but hardly anything more than that. To be fair, I am unaware if the promotional push in the nearer vacinity of Pailsey was more focussed than in Glesga, as I have never really frequented the former home of the Pirates.
What I have noticed though, are the amount of events that happen at Braehead, that while not being well hyped, are more subtly advertised around the city. Recently, I have noticed events involving JLS, Coloursfest, WWE, Disney on Ice, all being flyered and postered about, with notices on public transport advertising certain services and timetables to accomodate these Braehead events.
This would be a small step on the way to filling even more seats than what the Clan have done thus far. It is a testament to the work that the club have put in in promoting the team that there are decent crowds attending each week. At the Sheffield game in midweek, at a time when most families or adults would be happy with a night in front of the telly after a long day at work, that a good thousand or so turned up to cheer the boys on. Even the band of Steelers fans who made the trip up, must have been enthralled enough to come up on a school night to watch their team.
I believe this to be one of the first steps to success for the Braehead Clan. The fact that there is a dedicated core of fans, willing to sacrifice a week night for the benefit of the team, shows that there is a desire for something other than football for sports fans to sink their teeth in to. Again, on a personal note, living around 30 odd miles from the Arena, I managed to convince my fiance and Mother to head along on Tuesday, after we had all worked 9 to 5, and we had a great night.
As much as I've spoken of the little advertising for the team I have seen, (as a consumer and not as someone interested in the Clan) I believe that getting the Hockey lovers of Glasgow, Paisley and the surrounding areas attention off the bat, and developing from there is the right way to do it. Without fans, a team has nothing. No merchandise sales, no bums on seats and no interest.
By having this core of fans, the opportunity is there to use word of mouth to generate higher attendances. From doing my last Blog and speaking with my friends, I have peaked some Lanarkian interest for the Cardiff game next weekend and am hopefully bringing 4 or 5 more folk along and turning them in to fans. thise 4 or 5 could eventually bring another 4 or 5 and so on and so on.
With the momentum that the club has at the moment, and the results of this weekend, I hope I'm not setting my mates up for disappointment. Although, it's not as if I'm taking them to support The Caps. Having supported a team which has gone in to administration and seen them forced to lose 21 of their top players, I can appreciate the turmoil that Edinburgh are going through. As I said in the last installment, I like it when my teams beat those from the capital, but I do feel a modicum of sympathy for Edinburgh and more so their fans.
To continue to travel up and down the UK to see your team lose and lose heavily, very heavily on a weekly basis must be emotionally and financially draining. But, to give credit to them, they keep on supporting. I hope that if things go belly up at The Clan, that despite the performances and the scores, the core of fans who have served them well this year, would continue to do so.
A 15-0 win followed by a much tighter win by the odd goal in 5 against Hull has meant its been a great weekend for the Purple Army. Again the contributions of Kyle Bruce and Jordan Krestanovich have been instrumental in overtaking the Blaze. Next weekend sees another visit from Cardiff and an away trip to Coventry, where another 4 points are not unachievable.
Cardiff have fallen off the rails in recent weeks and with the 7-1 defeat to the Clan still fresh in the memory, they will want to make a game of it. 2 points from this game should see an added impetus to the Blaze game on Sunday, which could cement that 5th place.
Next week's Chapter will focus on the players and their impact on the performances this season, and will probably have some other stuff. Look out for my unofficial match report on the Cardiff game as well.
Mon Ra Clan!!!
PS- follow me on Twitter! @krisjack85 for all your Kris Jack needs!
No comments:
Post a Comment