County Night a big success
THERE were more than one or two tense expressions on the faces of Stockport County Supporters Cooperative Board members at the Stockport Beer & Cider Festival.
It was the culmination of weeks and weeks of patient negotiations, followed by a prolonged media focus publicising what was another bold move into largely uncharted territory by events manager Dave Marchbank and his team.
For the first time, the Cooperative engaged in a three pronged link up with nationally famous CAMRA, Stockport charity Beacon Counselling and local brewers Cryptic Ales in a move designed to boost the Guardian Account which is steadily heading towards £20,000.
The link up with CAMRA was a bold move on our part, another leap into the dark, agreement being reached some months ago for the Thursday evening session at the truly massive Stockport Beer & Cider Festival to be `County Night.’
CAMRA were most helpful throughout, offering loads of good advice as we prepared for the event, but notwithstanding this, come Thursday tensions were high – would the event fly or come a cropper?
Bumping into Alan Lord in the car park going in helped with the morale issue and it proved a good omen too as the event was a brilliant success with numbers up six per cent.
The Cooperative’s evening started circa 5.15pm when representatives of the Club and Cryptic Ales linked up to choreograph the ceremonial pulling of the first pint of County themed beer `The Ghost’ by competition winner Ken Scott.
Cryptic had worked really well with the Supporters Cooperative to launch this beer, and we urge County fans to give it a try!
The rest of the County orientated content went really well also. Alan Ogley, legend and hero from County’s past, set the tone with a riveting address to a packed room prior to the England game that was shown on the giant screen. Alan over ran by a minute or so but no one minded this at all and he got a great reception.
Next off, as the game ran its course, Alan headed for the County Podcast which was recording edition 17 live from the County Night. How did it go? Well I asked Podcaster Nick Lees who enthused he would “love to have Alan on every week..a great guy to talk to!”
As stated above, the event was aimed at boosting the Guardian Account, but the Cooperative were also mindful that CAMRA had a charity partner, namely Stockport’s Beacon Counselling who do important work helping young Stockport people and adults, operating from their offices in Bramhall and Greek Street in Stockport.
The aim on Thursday, however, was to push a Grand Raffle which offered a range of good prizes, but crucially also allowed Beacon and ourselves to share the proceeds 50/50.
I was really impressed with Beacon who had 10 volunteers at the Festival all working their socks off. Contact Beacon via admin@beaconcounselling.org.uk