jeudi 25 septembre 2014

My letter to Batman after he killed Robin.

After my last post I thought that maybe I went a bit far, that I should give Jenkins the benefit of the doubt and judge him at the end of the season.  Fact is that the poor Taffy can’t make a single move without making a mistake.  Before I was taking the piss but now I’m getting seriously angry, and I’m probably not the only one.

Jenkins, you’re the boss, you need to watch the costs, I understand that. But did our friend Patrice Robin really cost that much that it became a priority for you to ask him to leave with immediate effect?  Oh no, that’s right, you didn’t even have the balls to sack him yourself, you sent a poor back office soldier to do the dirty work for you. It took 3 minutes according to Robin himself. No time to waste, because within those 3 minutes you managed to fire him AND ask him to train two new guys ready to take over his job. (1)

So you spent the entire pre-season parading with your fucking ethical values of “discipline”, “respect”, “passion” and God knows what, to sack the stadium gardener before end September?!? The same guy the official club website made an article about only two month ago to explain how nice, simple and experienced he is?  (2) No, no one would be that stupid, true Jenkins?  

In terms of communication, you couldn’t have done any worse. Giving the pink slip to a poor guy who’s been working in the worst possible conditions for the last ten years, is just sad, actually you’re sad, you’re a sad little man. I have profound respect for gardeners in general and I liked Patrice Robin. To see him go makes me extremely upset.   

If you understood French, you’d know that the local press is seriously taking the piss. When former employees start washing their dirty laundry in the papers, it's usually a sign that the end is approaching. Your margin for errors is down to zero. You might not give a shit about the small local media orbit of Geneva, but your boss does. And when they’ll want you out, you’ll be out.

Batman, you’re slowly showing your true colors and they’re not bright. Therefore, for now, I politely decline you invitation to meet.  

Sincerely yours,
C. 

PS: If you ever want to have the slightest respect from the supporters again , fire Zubi and his sidekick. Any make it dirty.


vendredi 5 septembre 2014

Know your audience Jenkins.

I remember a game at Stade des Charmilles quite a few year back. I was sitting with a couple of mates drinking wine in "tribune B" (funny thing is that I never set foot behind the goals at the Charmilles and I have never been on the long side at La Praille). We got pretty pissed and it was one of those "total referee failure" games. So we got pretty angry and started screaming louder and louder and waving our empty glass bottles until a steward came up to us and politely asked us if he could take our empty bottles before something bad happened.


That situation is now history. No more glass bottles in the stands, and I'm pretty sure they don't even serve wine at the stadium anymore. At least not in the Praille north stand. Football has entered a new era. Back in the days, clubs tried to attract fans, today they want customers.

The biggest example of this change is probably French club Paris Saint Germain. I was lucky to attend a few games at Parc des Princes before the "Leproux plan". After club owners Colony Captial managed to clean the club from its most loyal (and sometimes violent) supporters, PSG was ready to be sold to the "clean and honest" Qatari group QSI. The timing could not have been better, actually too good to be a coincidence. Before QSI, PSG was nothing without its ultras. The club was badly managed, playing boring football and even the "Classicos" against Marseille were fading out to be quite boring. The show at Parc des Princes was not on the pitch, it was in the stands. And believe me, there are no words to describe the atmosphere there used to be in that stadium. No one in France and possibly in central Europe came even close. So without the Boulogne and Auteil ultras, the club was ready to die. But thanks to a huge amount of cash injection from QSI, the club was able to conquer a new type of audience. Customers. No more poor, dirty and violent ultras. From then and on, the show was on the pitch with their freshly bought super stars. Thanks to money, they managed to change the type of supporters from poor and passionate to rich and silent. 

Another example of money being able to buy you a new "better" audience is Real Madrid. The Ultras Sur only occupied a very small portion of the Santiago Bernabeu stadium but Florentino Perez knew that they occupied seats of potential high paying customers. A penny saved is a penny earned. So he managed to finally get rid of them. With the help of money (a lot of money), you have the luxury to choose which kind of supporters you want in your stadium.  
Servette FC marketing team are being very aggressive lately. The Quennec/Jenkins duo don't seem to understand that what might work in the UK or in ice hockey does not necessarily work with Swiss football. Jenkins prides himself with increasing the attendance at Cardiff City FC. Wrong, Vincent Tan injected the cash that made it possible. Quennec might have seen similar marketing campaigns work with GS Hockey Club, but you can't compare hockey and football. With ice hockey you don't have the same offer on TV. Unless you like staying up at night to watch the NHL, your only option is watching the Swiss league. It's a lot easier audience to attract to the stadium than what you find in football.
A big part of our club’s small budget, is going to marketing and trying to reach out to a new type of audience. It is not 100% clear which type of people the new campaigns are aimed for, but to me it looks a lot like the same type of people you now find at Parc des Princes and Santiago Bernabeu. Families and high paying customers. This is where I think my dearest club is doing all wrong! Swiss football, even at the highest level, is super boring to watch. In Switzerland, if you want to see good football, turn on your TV. You don't go to the stadium to see a great game, you go for the atmosphere. I try to watch a few other Swiss teams live every season, and I have noticed that the majority of people attending football games in this country, are quite young with their eyes more often on the ultras section than the pitch.
The association, the league, clubs, politicians and police are trying everything possible to eradicate the ultra-movement from Swiss football. What they don't understand is that the ultras, are Swiss football. You lose them, you lose all the kids that came to watch them and you lose the reason for professional football to exist in this country. Imagine FCZ (or GC) without the ultras, the few people coming to the stadium sitting outside the supporter section come for two reasons, the derbies and to see the shows put on by the Sudkurve. The only way to attract people to the stadium is to sell them a boiling atmosphere and strong rivalry (1). Clubs don't seem to understand it, but the ultras are their bread and butter. Not because they spend a lot of money, because the attract people who spend money. 

So my advice to Jenkins is that if you don't have the cash (and I know you don't) to build a team that will attract people with its beautiful football and many titles, you should consider taking care of the most loyal supporters before trying to reach out to new ones. These singing supporters are the attraction. If you take care of them and close your eyes from time to time on flares and firecrackers (2), they and their tifos will bring the crowd to La Praille.  

(1) The club recently removed a tweet following the home win against Lausanne because they thought it was to aggressive. You know what they tweeted? "Have a safe trip home on the shores of lake Geneva" What the fuck is wrong with you people? You want supporters insulting each other, you want the little Lausanne player cunt planting a LS flag on our pitch and you want to take the piss via social networks after a win, YOU WANT RIVALRY! The club should not have removed the tweet, they should have waited for LS to respond and then attack again even stronger. It could have gone viral and would have been a huge boost for the next games between the teams (marketing for dummies, chapter one).  


(2) I am deeply convinced that paying fines for the use of flares is a great investment. Flares and tifos attract more paying customers in the long run, than the fines will cost you. You wouldn't believe the number of people who tell me that they are only going to the derbies because that's when they see flares, tifos and a little bit of rivalry.  


lundi 1 septembre 2014

Don't boycott your brain!

You won’t believe it, Servette FC supporters are boycotting this year’s season pass campaign. And not any supporters, we are talking long time season pass holders for 20-30 years. Disaster? Not really, only about 15-20 people are following the action. You know why they are boycotting? Well each one of them has a different reason. I’m not shitting you, this is a true story.   



When boycotting something, knowing why you do it, is a good start. Knowing what you want to achieve with your action is even better. I noticed a very interesting conversation on the club forum the other day where some boycotters were politely asked by a supporter to explain themselves on their actual demands. He clearly asked them, what they expected from the club to change their minds and go back to buying season tickets. Despite being asked several times, none of the boycotters tried or could answer. They actually don’t know what they want!  
There are reasons to be unhappy with how things are going. Reasons to go as far as boycotting the season pass? Certainly not. On top of that, the chances of getting a reaction from the club when you are only 20 people following the action and all for different reasons are very questionable. But that’s not the best part of the whole story. These people continue to go to the stadium and buy a single entry ticket for every game. 

Let’s check the pros and cons of this action.

Cons:
- The club doesn’t give a shit about 20 people being unhappy
-          - When buying a single ticket you give more money to the club than buying a season pass, so you actually support the club even more.
-          - You waste time queuing to get your ticket.
-          - You don’t even know what you want from the club to change your mind

Pros:
-          -   ….. 


   Good work boys. You should look into boycotting plain stupidity for a start. 

lundi 25 août 2014

Servette FC CEO Julian Jenkins, the spelling expert.

Servette FC are really proud of their new slogan "une communauté, un club" and try to spread the word around different social networks. Most people seem to take the piss, I say why not. It's not better or worse than any other slogan. 
But when Servette FC CEO Julian Jenkins starts twitting about the club, it all goes pear-shaped. How difficult is it to get the hashtag slogan right? 


So tell us Mr Jenkins, what is a "communnate"? In the future you should avoid twitting when at the pub with your mates. A professional football club CEO who can't spell, simply doesn't look very... professional.   


BACK-RROCA for real?

Servette FC beat 5th division team Sirnach FC this weekend with the astonishing score of 8-0. Even if it is surely one of the biggest wins in an official game, in recent club history, the big news of the day was elsewhere. Joao Barroca was back between the posts.


For people to understand how big this is, we need to go back to the mid-season break of 2013-2014 (Swiss football leagues traditionally take a 2 month winter break from December to February). At the time, the club was not doing too bad and even had a chance at 1st division promotion, being only a few points behind leaders FC Vaduz. During the time off, president Hugh Quennec must have been terribly bored (he lives in Geneva after all) and decided to sign a new and unnecessary goalkeeping coach. This is when retired Swiss international goalie Pascal Zuberbuhler arrived at the club despite his terrible reputation from previous coaching experiences. 


First introduced as a simple goalkeeping coach, "Zubi" quickly took over additional responsibilities at the club. Despite the clubs delicate financial situation, he convinced president Quennec to sign his old friends and teammate Mario Cantaluppi as a first team coach staff member. On top of that, Zuberbuhler requested the signing of new unknown 160cm high Philippine international goalkeeper Roland Muller (according to wikipedia he's 180cm high but there is no way that could be true).  


From that moment, it is very difficult for a simple supporter to understand exactly what happened next. All we know is that the atmosphere in the changing room changed and the team results at the start of the 2nd round were no less than a disaster. It didn't take long before promotion dreams were over and first team manager Jean-Michel Aeby was sacked. Suddenly and out of nowhere, Zuberbuhler was named first team manager and his friend Cantaluppi his assistant. This, according to the official version, was to give management the time to find the perfect coach.(note that JM Aeby was already introduced as interim manager in August 2013 for the same reasons).    

As soon as Zubi got into power, he placed his new signing Roland Muller between the posts and sidelined not only the great Joao Barroca but also some of the first team best players such as Alexandre Pasche and Didier Crettenand. It was only then, that supporters started to realize how toxic the new coaching duo was going to be. Nr 2 keeper David Gonzalez was asked to find a new club and nr 1 Joao Barroca quickly understood that there was not a chance he was going to be nr1 again and eventually went on loan to Servette FC rivals Lausanne Sports. No matter how badly he played and how obvious his lack of potential was, Roland Müller had to be the number one Servette FC keeper. Zuberbuhler had intelligently cleared all possible competition out of the way. 

So this summer, when Kevin Cooper was finally introduced as the new manager and sports director, every supporter was praying for his first move to be sacking the “Zuberluppi” duo. That never happened. And even worse, Cooper seem to trust these two idiots, so supporters have been forced to watch their team already lose precious points due to Roland Müllers extremely limited skills. Well respected supporter legend “Migou”, even claimed on the club forum that Müller might be the worst keeper in club history.   
So, (finally) seeing Barroca as Servette FC goaltender was not only a relief but has also given supporters hope, despite that it was only a first round cup game. 

Cooper, open your eyes and bring us Back-rroca for good!    


Why are you lying Kevin Cooper?

Geneva is boring and that's why we love our good old Kalvingrad. And it's also why we love to focus on completely uninteresting and irrelevant facts. 
Before Swiss Cup 2014, 1st round, Servette FC coach Kevin Cooper recently stated in an interview for official website www.servettefc.ch that he was fortunate to have played the 2008 FA Cup final with Cardiff against Portsmouth. It didn't take long for Servette FC cyber supporters to google the facts and notice the terrible lie. 


What I found interesting was not the fact that Kevin Cooper might have lied to the supporters of his new club, because it was obviously a translation error (in the age of internet/Wikipedia, would he really lie about something like that? Come on!). What I found fascinating was the supporters disproportionate reaction to such a small little mistake. All over social networks and forums, supporters were calling Cooper a liar and saying how shocked they were that an official club media could be so unprofessional no to verify the facts before publishing articles. This, for me shows the true "Genevois" mentality, complain about anything possible, and if there's nothing to complain about, find something. So in a certain way, the supporters reaction is a "Genevois style" confession that they consider that thing at the club are going well and that they are quite happy with the current management.  
The error has since been corrected and poor Kevin Cooper has no longer played a FA Cup final. But he now remembers witnessing his team losing to Portsmouth in 2008. Boring.

Interview with Kevin Cooper: