FALKIRK OUT TO SUPPLY FOOTBALL FIX
NEVER before has the football family been more important than it is right now. We have a duty to get behind the local community at this unprecedented time of crisis. So we are looking at a series of initiatives, the first of which is called the Falkirk Fix. We want to keep our fans engaged with the club during the shutdown. Every Tuesday and Thursday, there will be popular Falkirk memories to remind the fans of just why they love the club. There will be clips of favourite goals and on a Saturday at 3pm the club’s YouTube channel will be showing classic Falkirk games, voted by the fans, so they are not missing their usual weekend football fix. We are also looking at fitness concerns now that people are working from home and not doing anywhere near the same amount of exercise.
With that in mind, one of our players, Michael Doyle, has agreed to do a weekly online fitness video to help our supporters keep in shape. Mikey is a great character. We are delighted because it’s a member of the Falkirk first team who is willing to sacrifice his own time in order to help out the fans. It is an ideal example of the Falkirk Family in action. We are also speaking to our partners, local businesses. Our vision is to work with as many partners as possible to put together a ration box of goods that will go to the Falkirk FC Blind Club and the Senior Bairns group of older supporters.
The plan is for club staff to be going round to the supporters’ houses to deliver these ration boxes and we hope that will start as early as next week. Another option we are looking at is a partnership with our local Morrisons supermarket. Of course, there are other supermarkets locally but some people will know that Morrisons is built on the site of Brockville, so it represents our spiritual home. I have got in touch with Morrisons and would like it if our Falkirk staff could go in there and volunteer and help customers pack their shopping bags. Also, taking a longer-term view, I am going to try and be as creative as I can next season when we launch our new season tickets. There has been a lot of talk recently about fans being desperate to get back to the football as soon as the shutdown is over. But the simple fact is they won’t be rushing back if they don’t have the money. The financial implications of the coronavirus are so severe that you can’t expect to open the doors once it’s safe to do so and the fans will all automatically come flooding back in. We are mindful of the financial implications of the current situation and we know we will need to be prepared to work as hard as possible to get the fans back. The current coronavirus crisis is uncharted territory. As a football club with community spirit running through our heart, Falkirk FC is fully committed to supporting our supporters as much as we can through these testing times.
lKIERAN KOSZARY is the director of commercial operations at Falkirk Football Club.