TOPIC: What has Phil King done so far?

Apart from an article in the News & Star back on the 11th June just after he was appointed I've heard nothing. In the statement he expected 80-90% of business people to be Carlisle United fans. If Cumbria is anything to go by there are more Manchester Utd, Liverpool and Newcastle fans.

His first priority should be not just getting people back to Brunton Park but also doing promotions to get people there who have never been. Of course the uncertainty and current situation is terrible at the moment and Cumbrians are well know to be the hardest people to sell an idea to, but going by the attendance of the Preston match we haven't moved forward.

From a marketing point of view starting at ground zero is a good place to start as any effort will improve the situation. There is a strong local media in Carlisle - I don't think any other lower league club will be more extensively covered than Carlisle United. This needs to be utilised - just over 2 weeks till the first home match!

He's not going to get an extra 3000 fans into the stadium for a friendly match overnight. Give him a break, he's not a miracle worker. He's only been in the job 4 weeks and I bet to begin with a lot of that was spent looking at how things were being done.

The club are running various events for local businesses that as far as I'm aware they haven't done in recent seasons. It's certainly an attempt to get local businesses back on side with the club. That's just one example of where you can see something being put in place. He's bound to have been meeting past/existing sponsors in an attempt to secure new deals for the club at a time when many may understandably be concerned.

Doesn't need miracles - its little things like people having to q to get inside a near empty Brunton Park and walking away. Pricing was far too high for a friendly as well. It should be publicised more (local business events). The only way to get local businesses back on side is to increase the number of people through the gates. If I was a local business I would not want any association with the club at all at the moment. Who would want to be associated with a circus?

Heard nothing but great things about Phil King so far. However, I honestly think he'll be p1ssing into the wind with his job and prove to be a complete wasted salary. Not his fault, but as stated above, who would want to be associated with that shambles. Esp after last few weeks shenanigans!?

Urban Designer wrote:
So on one hand you want him to reach out but if he reaches out to you youll tell him to F off. Looks like hes got his work cut out eh?

He's got no chance as long as AJ and JN have anything to do with the club.
After the way they have treated Lapping and the latest resignation it's more and more obvious that JN is untrustworthy and nobody in their right mind would want to work with him or invest in the club while he and AJ are there.

He was on football forum talking, and basically the gist of his interview was meetings with cuosc and behind the scenes work

He needs to be on the scene in the next 2 weeks.

The club have very infrequently in the past held "business lunches" which got sent round on a mailer - they looked horrible and uninteresting.

The business club idea seems to have some popularity, but think it's more a vanity thing for club and co's.

I've had two emails this week about pre season events with a chance for businesses to exclusively meet KC et al and a few players and hear a bit about pre season and the hopes for the new campaign. There does seem to be a bit more going on with connecting to local business.

That said, part of the reason we withdrew sponsorship shortly after donating the first scoreboard and repainting the Neil was that the club were no longer making it commercially appealing to sponsors. It has to mutually benefit both parties... I think there's a genuine disinterest in the club from a local business sense and it's due to poor management of these relationships historically.

Give the guy a chance, urban. I hope this isn't someone being overly critical after being over looked for the role?

Not sure if things have happened yet ready for the season but when I spoke with him the talk was of improving the current facilities at the ground such as Sunset, Sporting Inn, East Stand bars on the basis that is no point promoting the club and getting people down if the product isn't right and they aren't going to enjoy the experience and then not come back.
There is a very good brochure for Corperate Matchday opportunities available which if you email the club they will send you out a copy. Not sure if this was already in place before Phil arrived or if it was something he got sorted as soon as he arrived.

Mouldy wrote:
If it is, then it's probably a good job he didn't get the job. His posts on here seem to show a bit of a lack of understanding of how marketing works.

cufcdeano wrote: Absolutely right... when you come into any Sales and Marketing position the first thing you do is review the existing processes and look to formulate a plan of improvement/change. This normally takes at least 2 months to get a full understanding... I'd imagine the set-up was pretty hopeless when he came in so it is going to take time to get things in order and get the right people in to support a change plan. At this point in time he is probably thinking... " what the f**k have I done..." The position is going to be incredibly difficult with the current owners and he has very little chance of succeeding until they have gone to be honest.

But imagine if it was as simple as getting a full page advert in the News & Star which read:

EVERYBODY, COME DOWN TO BRUNTON PARK TO WATCH CARLISLE UNITED WIN THE SOCCERBALL!!

GOALS! GOALS! GOALS!

Just because there's a local media presence, doesn't mean that you don't have to lay some very important groundwork to get folk back onside before you start just telling them to start coming to games again.

I know exactly how marketing works Chester, and no I didn't apply for the job. Ironically I was at same University studying Planning & Development Surveying to get a career change away from Sales & Marketing while Phil was studying there. There are some easy things they could do to improve match day experience. For example, not having people walking away from a match as mentioned on this board because q's weren't moving. Having enough people on the bars and serving something that wasn't scraped of the floor of a factory. When we played Wolves a couple of seasons ago they directed the Wolves fans to the Travel Lodge down the road so they could get served! Having stewards that didn't act (or maybe they are?) like Botchergate bouncers would be a s start!

Are Botchergate bouncers badduns then?. Cant say ive ever had a run in with either so maybe they are just the same. Food and bars are on a poxy franchise so will continue to be crap.

There is so much CUFC could be doing to get the message out that the club are part of the community. We were in Germany the other week and visited a number of grounds and club shops. MSV Duisburg's is fantastic. Newly promoted to Bundesliga 2 they have a new ground and a fantastic club shop. Rot-Weiss Essen (4th Tier) have a neat 20,000 seater and another excellent club shop and website:

www.lms-ticket.de/rot-weiss-essen/

However, Borussia Dortmund have it really organised, as you would expect. Their English website carries loads of clever stuff such as 'How to write and get a reply from a player', 'How to meet a player' etc etc. They have regular open training sessions where fans are invited to attend and chat to staff. This is a club with 80,000 home supporters, a waiting list for season tickets of 5-8 yrs (depending on which part of the ground) and hospitality boxes that start at 80,000Euro a season. They ARE part of the community. We could be looking at these clubs and how they engage with fans for starters.

BaggersBlue wrote:
What did you think of Duisburg? Heard it is a bit of hellhole the Town like. The ticketing system many Clubs use in Germany is excellent, this new one of Carlisles looks absolutely miles away from them in all honesty.

I've been to Duisburg five or six time. It is very run down.

A lot of praise for German clubs here but when we went to see Bayern Munich you couldn't use cash to buy food and drink inside the ground. You had to obtain a plastic card and put money on it, estimating how much you'd spend once inside. If like us it was a one-off visit to the stadium you then had to queue to after the match to get the unspent money refunded. It was all a bit of a faff.

Urban Designer wrote:
Sorry, misunderstood your FAO Laffy thread on the old board declaring your interest as applying.

Wazza didn't actually go into Duisburg. However, we went to the railway museum in Bochum which was great and Norman Foster's reworking of a massive coal mine and smelting complex into a museum of the Ruhr and a design museum (Red Dot). Both were worth a visit.

As to food inside German stadiums. BlueDazzle you sound to have had a pretty poor experience, never heard of having to have a certain card to buy food before. However, we saw Aachen (4th tier) last season. They have a 32,000 stadium but had only opened 2/3 of it. The crowd was 9000+ and their food outlets were fully staffed producing fresh batches of chips, wurst and chips, hotdogs, curry wurst and chips etc The food was cheap, fresh and there were hardly any queues. What was interesting was as the food was good and freshly cooked everyone was buying something. Aachen also had a very good fan shop. If you can pick up a game there is a great atmosphere.

Think Duisburg was hit by mine closures if I remember correctly, big Turkish population as well.

You have to load cash on to a card at most of the Bundesliga Stadiums like, there is an article somewhere on the net of how much Bayern make off the unused credit and it ran in to millions. It works if you are a regular and makes getting served much quicker but can be a pain if you are not but at many it is pretty easy to get your cash back - Bayern will always be harder due to the number of daytrippers, walk in the park at say Augsburg or when 1860 are at home.

At the Stadiums lower down it is different and you can pay cash at nigh on all, agree about the food like and variety, steaks at Union Berlin were brilliant - easy do somet like at Carlisle with Cumberland Sausage. I am in Würzburg at the minute, going to watch them v Dynamo Dresden today in the 3.Liga.

I'd pay a decent quid for a Cumberland sausage bap on a match day rather than them shite hotdogs or burgers.

Would actually pay £4/5 for a decent steak burger too.

Heard lidl do some decent rolls we could maybe stick em in...