What do you think of Hearts putting Save the Children on their shirts? Perhaps more appropriately, how will Hearts fans feel about their club this morning? When the next invitation to buy a season ticket, or shop for merchandise email arrives, what’s going to be the instinctive reaction?
Hearts fans are an unpredictable lot, but if this was Celtic, first to grab the headlines on Living Wage, then following up with a charity on the shirt, we would be bursting with pride, or what marketing people call brand affinity.
A football club affinity is a choice. Most of us were handed our team before we were out of nappies but we still choose the extent of our affinity – to buy the next ticket. Celtic fans have a notion that we are more of a Movement of people than a typical support – I am only here because I subscribe wholeheartedly to this notion.
For this to make any sense, we need Celtic to be the most ethical football club on the planet.
World leadership sounds ambitious, but the market for ethical football leadership is a bit thin. Between organised criminals, thuggish bullies, kleptocratic politician-owners, tax cheats, money launderers and what can only be described as disorganised criminals at one particular club, the market is wide open. This is Celtic’s natural territory. And it’s profitable!
We buy into what we see as the sentiment behind a football club and if we see Celtic championing ethical wins, we feel connected to the club.
Let’s be clear: Celtic ARE one of the most ethical clubs on the planet. The Foundation is not the biggest in the world, but it is supported by fans and club alone, not petrodollars looking for a home. Celtic FC Foundation feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, aide the needy, include the excluded. They do this in your name and it’s an integral part of the club’s mission.
We are part of the story too. You and I are part of the Foundation but Celtic fans also evangelise the ethics and standards of our club in our own small ways. What Celtic fan groups have achieved is staggering.
We have a backstory which any brand in business would kill for. Formed to feed starving children! What a story. It you planned the profile of the most ethical football club in the world you couldn’t dream up a better beginning, a better corporate story, or a better community engagement. The ingredients are all there.
Hearts fans will WANT to buy into what their club is doing this morning because their club has become ethically aspirational over a short period of time. Hearts haven’t began to scratch the surface of Celtic’s ethical marks. We are peerless in UK football – and that’s not an idle boast.
So why am I boring you with all this stuff you know already? It’s time we started to wear our colours on our sleeve, if not our chests.
‘We are Celtic, born to feed the hungry in 1888, today we not only feed the hungry, we do so much more. Come and join us.’
Make this our mission. Commit wholeheartedly, lead with it. Always. Every contact I have with the club should remind me why I’m a Celtic fan. Be confident of its resonance with fans, and all the business objectives we worry about achieving will fall into place.
On the subject………
We are close to our target of paying for another school kitchen in Malawi for Mary’s Meals, this auction will push us over the line…………
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All day Hospitality for 4 based at the Eden Mill Distillery for the Open Golf Championship at St Andrews on any day to suit from 16 to 19 July 2015. Auction in aid of the Celtic Quick News (CQN) appeal to build a fourth school kitchen in Malawi for Mary’s Meals. Shuttle transport for the five minute journey to and from the golf course as needed Beer, Gin and Whisky tastings throughout the day with the master distiller. The chance to create a unique CQN single malt whisky cask worth potentially £5000 for future CQN charities. A bottle of this very special single malt whisky to commemorate the great day when it is bottled in several years. Eden Mill is Scotland’s newest and most innovative distillery and brewery incorporated in February 2012! Located just 2 miles from the famous Old Course itself it provides a perfect base for hospitality for yourself and 3 friends on a day of your choosing at the forthcoming open golf championship on July 16th to 19th. But this is so much more than just a day’s hospitality at the home of golf. Before taking to the course to watch the you will enjoy a breakfast roll or two and discuss your perfect single malt whisky with the master distiller. Whilst you and your friends are enjoying the golf he will seek to surpass your favourite whisky by using the best barley to create the right wash and recommending the right type of barrels for our very own unique CQN 1/4 cask of single malt. A cask which will mature and provide over £5000 of future funding for our charities in a few years time. You will return to the distillery by shuttle bus for lunch and an optional beer tasting and then for afternoon tea with a tutored gin and whisky tasting with the owner capping off a memorable, unique and very special day for your group and for CQN.
My thanks to Eden Mill for their incredible support. You can bid on the auction here. |
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Regardless of any Motives or advantages to the club or the people involved, what Hearts have done is to be applauded…the support will feel good about their club, the club will get positive media attention and the charity will gain..
..well done Hearts….
What did Burnley 78 do?
Paul 67
Great article & also well done to Eden Mill for their donation.
I don’t think Hearts have stolen our chips in this arena, but , I think they have given us a wake up call, and there are things we could learn from them, particularly on the PR front.
I have a lot of mates who are Hearts fans, most of whom are content to put one over Hibs, and will dump football at the merest sniff of a rugby match.
If Hearts could capture the money these guys spend on rugby , and if Aberdeen properly engage with the oil industry, then, Imho , in the long term, we wouldn’t be the only club in Scotland with ambitions to play & compete on a bigger platform.
I actually think the Hearts initiatives will spur Celtic on to doing more. It is always easy to become complacent when you have been the front runner for a long time in any walk of life. Well done to Hearts, having said that I still don’t like their fans and their hun like ways.
Funny to see reports in the English media about the England/ROI game.
The FA have accepted that the England fans will be singing anti-IRA songs like they did at Celtic Park.
They were playing Italy in Turin but were singing about the IRA?
Makes me laugh. How many times do we get looked down on by the London press?
Hi, been doing my civic ( jury ) duty at the High Court in Glasgow these past 2 weeks – trial now over – and been on a self imposed exile from the timternet. Never in a million years did it occur to me that one day I’d be differentiating the meanings of murder and culpable homicide as applied to Scots law. Feeling a bit numb. Just wanted to get that off my chest, sorry.
Anyway, 2 weeks of all your interesting/salient/funny/rubbish posts is too much to catch up on – what if any are the highlights? Do we have any injury worries for tomorrow night?
H.H.
Celtic are run more like a fat-cat controlled corporate PLC than Hearts
thats why when the question is put to our board about introducing the living wage, it is struck down amid phrases like ‘needing to remain competitive’ and ‘flexible employment practices’. Usual corporate nonsense.
Its the same mindset as the 100 business leaders who signed the ‘vote tory’ letter in yesterday news – they want to keep the power of zero hour contracts and pitiful wages because it ultimately fills their own trough.
My company pay the living wage, but the question i asked is – if, for data protection or other reasons, it was illegal for them to disclose whether they paid the living wage or not, would they still have introduced it, or is a lot of the reasoning for bringing it in as much to do with the publicity of shouting it from the rooftops as it is with having sympathy for low paid workers, which lets face it, very few corporate fat cat companies have that sympathy.
in the end as long as the employees are getting as much dosh as they can then thats the important thing, but i wouldnt be over eager to praise bosses who do it, as i reckon many of them are far from benevolent participators.
but i do think that Saving The Children is a great idea, and if Hearts are the ones to Save them then thats all good!
Pogmathonyahun aka Laird of the Smiles
13:35 on
2 April, 2015
I actually think the Hearts initiatives will spur Celtic on to doing more. It is always easy to become complacent when you have been the front runner for a long time in any walk of life. Well done to Hearts, having said that I still don’t like their fans and their hun like ways.
Ditto
HH
Our charitable efforts are in stark contast to our quiet support of corruption. Take Resolution 12 for example. So all you tins out there you cant have your cake and eat it. The mafiosi does great charity work too.
HH
TheLurkinTim
13:36 on
2 April, 2015
Hi, been doing my civic ( jury ) duty at the High Court in Glasgow these past 2 weeks – trial now over – and been on a self imposed exile from the timternet. Never in a million years did it occur to me that one day I’d be differentiating the meanings of murder and culpable homicide as applied to Scots law. Feeling a bit numb. Just wanted to get that off my chest, sorry.
Anyway, 2 weeks of all your interesting/salient/funny/rubbish posts is too much to catch up on – what if any are the highlights? Do we have any injury worries for tomorrow night?
H.H.
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Tell you what, if you give us the specifics of the case, then the CQN jury will decide if you made the right decision ;-)
Do all the pubs in Ireland still close on Good Friday??
Dena,
I had exactly the same thought reading Paul 67’s article. A raffle seems a better way of doing things.
@Awe_Naw_No_Annoni_Oan_Anaw_Noo
You are really reaching today.
We don’t all live in a perfect world where institutional corruption is solved by pointing fingers.
Got to admire what Hearts are doing .. Lot of their fans are animals though ..
Mind standing at Mount Florida station waiting for a train to get into town, after a semi final against them in the late 80’s .. Was when the Edinburgh AIDS epidemic was at its height .. Train taking them back to Edinburgh crawled through the station .. Widow opens .. One of the clatty bassas gobs on my face ..
Stayed in a darkened room for about a month after that ..
Thought I was doomed .. I tell yea! :)
Hi guys can someone give me paul67 email please.
That brand identity you mention Paul would be a lot stronger if we had left wing people selling a marvellous left wing story.
The board of Celtic are anything but.
Just to add to that, didnt you hear they strongly feel £23.00 is too high to pay to watch Celtic watch Inverness at Hampden but £26.00 at Celtic Park is perfectly reasonable!
The message is much more authentic when you practice what you preach.
ClogherCelt – is that the Tyrone Clogher or another part in Ireland?
Natknow
13:12
Glad you mentioned this.
Something that was overlooked in the article was Hearts receiving a chunk of the seven figure sum.
Remember, it’s not Anne Budge who is the philanthropist here; she’s cashing in on them!
NatKnow,
I concur.
Árd Macha
Foghorn leghorn,
I have a beyond a reasonable doubt & moral certitude that the right decision was taken, doesn’t mean to say that I can’t feel for the whole sorry tragic situation. ( simulated smiley thingy )
H.H.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJoa47R1yqc
Catchy wee choon I heard on RTE on Saturday.
I have no idea why Paul would describe Celtic as having a great moral compass – participating in corruption, racism etc?
But hey – lets pretend its all done for charity and not just for money!
ernie lynch
13:08 on 2 April, 2015
For years done more fund raising that I get roped into other community projects.My bus would just laugh if I suggested a constitution. Seems nerdy to me. As I suggested to the poster organise a race night make a few grand no problem.
Timaloy29
Nonsense on both fronts.
I quote examples….you retort with platitudes.
No surprises there. It is what tims in denial do.
HH
Jude,
Yes they close.
Eyes Wide Open,
Clogherhead, An Lu
IGC
13:49 on
2 April, 2015
Natknow
13:12
Glad you mentioned this.
Something that was overlooked in the article was Hearts receiving a chunk of the seven figure sum.
Remember, it’s not Anne Budge who is the philanthropist here; she’s cashing in on them!
Árd Macha
13:52 on
2 April, 2015
NatKnow,
I concur.
Árd Macha
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Exactly. Sorry to be such a cynic, but Hearts getting credit for “doing something” is laughable. The story is this : Some anonymous businesses are giving Hearts money to put the Save The Children logo on their strips. It’s a straightforward sponsorship deal – Hearts are advertising Ssve The Children rather than Wonga – and getting £500k min. for doing so – nothing more.
Paul67
Would we all be willing to pay an extra £20 for our season tickets or £40 to ensure that we have an ethical sponsor on our shirt. With 50% of those proceeds going to that ethical sponsor (the top up). Wouldn’t it be good to have Oxfam, Wateraid or Mary’s Meals emblazened on our shirts? I think Mary’s Meals would be good as a Scottish based charity.
I take my hat off to Hearts – what a change since Ann Budge, who is no leftie by the way, took over.
A lot of us love the ethical dimension to our club but do the directors? The way they had to be dragged kicking and screaming towards paying a decent wage to the club’s employees disgusted me. They matched the amount but didn’t sign up to the Living Wage campaign. It appears grudged. It’s not the support who have to step up here, it’s the Board.
The England away support are a vile shower of sun reading lowlife. Now THEY are huns!
In Turin they were singing ‘where were you in world war II” to the bemused tallies. Pondlife.
Wouldn’t take my family anywhere near that game in Dublin. It will be like the huns sacking of Manchester all over again. Mark my words.
So Hearts fans’ will stop singing the Savile song now? Aye right.
Sorry bhoys you are being far too cynical.
As custodians of their club they could possibly get more if they went with a gambling or alcohol firm. This is a brilliant piece of social marketing. She is clevely aligning her club in a very positive light.
Natknow @1401
Boom! Nail on head.
HH
Anyway, anyone seen a nomad wandering?
Sorry if I’ve missed the link but how do we join the Auction?
Grant from STV on twitter…
@STVGrant: Rangers announce they have been unable to find a new Nomad and will delist from the Alternative Investment Market.
Tim Tanium
14:05 on
2 April, 2015
Sorry bhoys you are being far too cynical.
As custodians of their club they could possibly get more if they went with a gambling or alcohol firm. This is a brilliant piece of social marketing. She is clevely aligning her club in a very positive light.
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I agree – it’s great marketing by Hearts – but nothing more. At best it’s the businesses who should be getting credit for making a committment to pay a charity (n.b they haven;t paid anything yet and we won’t know if/when they do because they’re “anonymous philanthropists”!). They would have gotten more from other firms? Mibbes aye, mibbes naw – we don;t know what (if anything) was on the table.
“Someone once told me, ‘Time is a flat circle.’ Everything we’ve ever done or will do, we’re gonna do over and over and over again.” – Rust Cohle, True Detective.
A perfect metaphor for why chaos continually descends on Ibrox and why some of their fans and the media don’t seem able to deal with reality.
http://www.onfieldsofgreen.com/the-seven-year-itch/
So, they are to delist. SKY reckons it’s a body blow but not too bad.