All Forums  Reggae Boyz Supporterz Club  Everything Reggae Boyz Forum  Frankie's - Sam's vision Part 4 & 5

Note: You must be registered in order to post a reply.
To register, click here. Registration is FREE!

Screensize: 640 x 480 800 x 600 1024 x 768 1280 x 1024 UserName: Password: Format Mode: Basic  Help  Prompt  Format: Font Andale Mono Arial Arial Black Book Antiqua Century Gothic Comic Sans MS Courier New Georgia Impact Lucida Console Script MT Bold Stencil Tahoma Times New Roman Trebuchet MS Verdana   Size 1 2 3 4 5 6   Color Black Red Yellow Pink Green Orange Purple Blue Beige Brown Teal Navy Maroon LimeGreen Message: * HTML is OFF * Forum Code is ON Smilies [quote][i]Originally posted by Karl[/i] [br]Sam's Vision Parts 4 & 5 Mon Oct 14 03:04:57 2002 62.190.37.200 Sam's Vision - Part Four The power behind the Wanderers OUR five-part series examining the changing face of Bolton Wanderers since Sam Allardyce's arrival, today focuses on Phil Gartside -- the chairman who appointed Big Sam. GORDON SHARROCK looks at the pioneering work he has sanctioned in the commercial field BEHIND every successful manager stands a good chairman. The old marriage analogy, so often applied in business, could not be better illustrated than in the cut and thrust of the football industry. No appraisal of Sam Allardyce's management can be made without reference to the man who gives him his head and, ultimately, signs the cheques. So it is no surprise to hear Phil Gartside speak of his partnership with the man he brought to the Reebok three years ago. "In normal business it's important to have a good relationship between your chairman and manager," says the Wanderers' chief, "but in football it is essential. The understanding has to be spot on and Sam and I have a great relationship." Newly-installed as chairman of the board, he had a good idea what he was getting when he recruited Allardyce in the wake of Colin Todd's departure in the autumn of 1999. As a fan himself, he remembered Big Sam's playing style, but he also knew he had become one of the most innovative managers in football. And that suited a chairman who refuses to be held back by the twin constraints of tradition and narrow-mindedness, however unusual the idea might be. The prospect of Juventus being interested in a partnership with Wanderers raised a few eyebrows. But the Italian giants believe they can learn a lot from Gartside and Co in terms of stadium development and merchandising, while Allardyce would love to dip into the Turin club's playing reserves. Such plans show the chairman's open-minded approach, which he encourages in his staff. "I've always said that if there's anything new they want to try they can do it -- provided they can justify it and make it work," he explains. "You'd like it to make money too but, as long as it's good for the fans or good for the team, we'll give it a go. "With players' wages as big as they are, spending £10,000 or £20,000 on a promotion like Teamcard is nothing. That can be a week's wages for some players. "As long as it stacks up from a business point of view, it's worth speculating." Innovation is not exclusive to the football department. Commercially, Wanderers have become brand leaders in the last five years since the move to the Reebok -- pioneers in fund raising and widely-acclaimed experts in the field of maximising the earning potential of their stadium, 365 days a year. When Teamcard was launched a year ago, they became the first professional club in the world to operate a multi-functional 'smart' card - a season ticket and loyalty card combined. Figures released today show that supporters spent £750,000 with Wanderers Teamcard partners (participating local businesses) in the year to October 1 and earned five million loyalty points, equivalent to £50,000 in cash. Wanderers have profited too, but in addition to financial benefits, Teamcard gives them more information on their supporters than ever before - their lifestyle, spending habits, the turnstile they use and even what time they use it! They have introduced new ticketing, retail and lottery technology and have set up a customer relationship management system in a bid to improve further their service to supporters. "Clubs have assumed in the past that fans would remain loyal, no matter how they treat them," commercial director Gareth Moores concedes. "But that is not the way forward. We want to provide a four star service-led business, just like the hotel. "We do a lot of research to keep us in touch with the supporters' needs with regular focus groups and questionnaires and we constantly monitor our own performance." Hamstrung by debts in excess of £30 million -- a consequence of the stadium and hotel development -- Wanderers are constantly having to find new ways of generating revenue. If they stood still they might lose the trust of their bankers. The balance sheet will be the measure of their success on that score. But an invitation to join 35 of the top clubs in Europe -- Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Leeds, Chelsea and Newcastle are the other English representatives -- at a workshop on The Commercial World of Football, hosted by the Italian giants Lazio, suggests they are on the right lines. "The reason we have been invited is because we are seen as having a blueprint for best practice, especially in the area of broadening and diversifying -- building a broad-based business platform. "It's not necessarily new to clubs in this country. Chelsea have a similar philosophy but the vast majority of the top clubs in Europe, Italy in particular, are way behind us. We are not as big a football club as Real Madrid, Barcelona, Juventus or Inter Milan but in some respects we are light years ahead of them. "That's demonstrated by the number of clubs who have come to look at what we are doing here. We are held up as an example of how to grow, how to become successful and compete at the highest level." Standing 11th in the Premiership's commercial league, Wanderers are punching way above their weight with their off-field activities but the table that matters shows that on the field they are struggling to compete with the elite of English football. But recent expansions, which have turned the Reebok into one of the largest hotel, conference and banqueting businesses in football, 1,300 corporate customers per match day and the development of offices in the North Stand should help cushion the blow -- if things do not work out on the field. "We don't have the fan base some of the big clubs have," Gareth Moores acknowledges, "but we have a strategy to supplement our income from football with other income streams - none of which are exposed to the volatility of football. We've created a fairly stable business platform which will help us compete with clubs who have a much bigger fan base. "Relegation is not something we want to think about because the financial implications are massive but the mere fact that the club has developed this broad-based business means that if the worst comes to the worst we will be in a far, far better position than other clubs to bounce back." Sam's Vision - Part Five Sam's emphasis on youth IIF English football's bank balance continues to crash alarmingly into the red, Bolton Wanderers could find themselves perfectly placed to lead a new world order. The loss of income from the collapse of ITV Digital provided a Trojan horse which no irresponsible Nationwide League chairman could look in the mouth, with a string of mis-managed and massively over-budget clubs using this golden excuse as they reveal their 'sudden' financial crisis. And, barring the money machines at Arsenal and Manchester United, whose realistic business plans have ensured a healthy income for the foreseeable future, even Premiership clubs are beginning to feel the pinch after throwing money at star signings reaped scant reward. The one positive offshoot from the threat of financial meltdown is that clubs are slowly waking up to the fact that the best investment they can make is in their own youth set-up. Happily for Wanderers, Sam Allardyce came to that conclusion years ago. "Sam's vision is to eventually have at least 50 per cent of the players in the first team squad being home grown," reveals Wanderers' academy director Chris Sulley. "He's very aware of the need for a strong academy. We have to provide regular reports for him and he's very interested in who's doing well, who we are signing and if he can help in any way with that process. "He watches our games from time to time and promotes a few of them into the reserves to see them in that environment." Sulley, a vastly experienced former Blackburn and Chelsea player, actually pre-dates Allardyce's Reebok reign, lured by Colin Todd in 1998 after successful coaching spells with Rovers and Preston North End. His appointment is now beginning to bear fruit, not least in the rise to international prominence of midfield protoge Kevin Nolan, who this week earned his first England Under 21 call-up after being funnelled through Sulley's academy ranks into a regular first team berth. Now his former mentor is using his breakthrough as an inspiration for his latest prospects, including teenage defender Danny Livesey. "Kevin has burst through very quickly and really has been the trailblazer for the boys," says Sulley. "Now they can see they will get an opportunity when they are ready and that the manager and board here believe in promoting players from the youth team. "They see it is the overall vision of the club to continue to develop young players and give them an opportunity in the first team. "Danny is a great prospect. He's very mature for his age and nothing seems to faze him. He's a very talented player and, although he still needs to develop certain areas of his game, the raw ability and mental attitude is there." The route into senior first team football is becoming an increasingly lengthy process, with Sulley snapping up children as young as six years old to try and mould them into the way of the Wanderers. "That's the new battleground," explains Sulley, sensing the scepticism raised by plucking a child barely out of the nursery to become the next Michael Ricketts. "We can't officially sign them until they are in their ninth year but we do need to catch them early because children's motor skills are at their most receptive between the ages of six and 12. "If we can get these boys coached and developed technically from that early age, that will lay the foundation for them to develop. "They are eventually given contracts that vary from one to four years, depending on their age. "In their 16th year, you make a decision on whether they will get a scholarship or not. That gives them a guaranteed three-year educational package, with a one-year option on their football development. Pro contracts can be signed from 17." The Football Association has recently imposed strict limitations on youth recruitment, with each club restricted to only signing players living within 90 minutes travelling distance of the training ground. But Sulley has worked hard to exploit a loophole in the directive, overseeing an innovative scheme to tap a fresh seam of young talent across the Irish Sea. Ballymena FC, governed by the Football Association of Ireland, are exempt from the new law and have agreed to become something of a feeder club to the Wanderers academy. "We went out there to look at their facilities, to help develop their coaching education and their development programme, with an understanding that we could have first viewing of the players they had coming through," says Sulley. "Sam then really added weight to the link-up by taking his whole team over there to promote the opening of their new stand and play an exhibition match. That was a great help. "Ballymena is only the beginning. We are trying to make links around Europe to supplement what we are doing in the north west of England. "Our priority is to get players from the North West and Bolton area but the stepping stones towards achieving that goal is to build links with clubs abroad like Ballymena." With the foundations now firmly in place, it should not be long before Bolton have an academy as famously productive as the likes of Crewe Alexandra, Liverpool and Manchester United. Among their next crop of potential Premiership stars are Welsh U21 international Mickey Byrne, England schoolboy Michael Gillen, Swedish U21 star Duong Tach and Northern Ireland's Wayne Buchanan. But Sulley and Allardyce are well aware that developing these players is only half the job and that persuading them to stand by the club when first team opportunities are at a premium, could hold the key to the club's future success. "At worst an academy is an insurance policy," added Sulley. "If we get relegated, providing we are doing things right, we should have enough good young players coming through to be able to show some of the big earners the door. That's certainly the case at the moment. "But as we get more established in the Premiership, it gets harder for our players to break through and this has been our biggest thrust. "We have set out a strategy this year to give these fringe players more one-to-one personal development in their physical, technical and psychological programmes because they are very much still part of the manager's plans. "We will also look to loan players out to get them some first team experience somewhere else. Hopefully all that will help them develop into first team players for Bolton." [/quote]   Check here to include your profile signature.