I agree with others that the best place to start is to get them while they are young. I heard an interesting interview with a Junior Club Official a few years back when Hawthorn where organising their move to Waverly. Apparently the Hawks approached a number of clubs in the Waverly area and asked them to change their colours and mascot to the same as Hawthorns. I can't remember but there was some incentive provided and the teams where happy to do it.
Surely an idea like this could be adapted and used by us, my suggestion is to approach local junior clubs that already are navy blue or even blues teams and offer some kind of support (the local Junior league where I live has a Navy Blues (Rosebud) and a Royal Blues (Hastings). For instance Nike could supply one of their teams with jumpers, they can put their RFC or HFC logo on the front. If this is too much maybe some footballs, definately some training runs with AFL Players, of course the bigger the name the better. These guy's a full time professionals and they training on different day's, on different weeks, so they can be available on the right night.
I'd like to see any Junior Blues team become a Sister (or maybe a Little Brother) club to Carlton. We definately lost something when the VFL got rid of the zones, we need to re-establish a link to the Junior Football Community all over the state and eventually the Country. It's amazing how an event in a young boy or girls life such as meeting Marc Murphy at training or being presented a jumper by Fev could get a supporter and possible member for life. The other benefit is a network of Club Officials who talk positively about the club and may even let us know about that potential smokie draft pick we should have a look at.
To implement a program like this the club should have a full time officer whose role is to orgainse the players to do this type of promotion. It's not good enough to hear a story like Elwood's where we miss a chance to make contact with kids, while Essendon* swoop in and take our place. I can't see this costing us too much and the positive PR and other benefits would make it worth any investment.
Elwood Blues1 wrote:
Agree with CB..Collingwood have great TV exposure thanks to Eddie and prime time at that...hard to compete with that...
Like Mikkey's idea..more celebs selling the club...also more players at schools...some of the other clubs really kick our butt in that area....rang the club a couple of times when my son was at primary school and they were not interested...Essendon* didnt have a problem ..sent Dean Rioli, and Marc Bullen and we wonder why Essendon* have great support especially amongst the youth...and Auskick is the same ...all the kids have Pies/Bomber jumpers on ..in fact where I took my son there were more West Coast supporting kids....the brand name is buggered at the grass roots level and when I asked my little bloke why none of the other kids are Carlton supporters he said we suck and its embarrassing when we lose every week....we need to tap into the young market better than we do....charging for family day isnt the way to go about it for example...
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