Last night was my first home game of the season, thus my first encounter with the current matchday programme, and I have to say I was astonished by how bad it is. Not pointing any fingers or wanting to blame any individuals, but I think for a club that would regularly finish first or second in programme of the year polls to now be offering that is a sad indictment of the current blase attitude that permeates through this club, from the players on the pitch right on down.
Yes, we're in the third division, less programme sales, there's much less advertising revenue behind it, less money for writers etc. Is that why the typeface is so big? If it's because most of our remaining fans have bad eyesight, that's fair enough, but if it's a cost saving measure to drop to 400 words a page rather than a more sensible/expected 600, then what a load of tosh. If it's down to the freelancers budget, pay them by the page not by the word. The communications department can happily generate thousands upon thousands of words of text for the CAFC website and bulletin each day, why is it so difficult to find a few extra words for the programme. You have 60 full-colour pages available, make use of them by providing something that reflects well and professionally on the club, not something that looks thin, hastily cobbled together and largely full of irrelevant filler.
The away club pages are a nonsense - 'Initially Speaking' is the sort of thing you'd find in a children's comic, and 'Dugout2Dugout', which cheerily informs us that our manager shares a fictional character's amazing quirk of having both his names start with the same letter, is, well... surreal. Speaking of surreal, is the Kevin Nolan colum a regular feature - if so, are they always like this? Every paragraph seems completely unconnected to the ones that come before and after it, and the majority of the piece appears to be a review of a 1980s Bruce Willis movie. Huh?
I'll give the Addicks A-Z the benefit of the doubt, given that Q is probably a tricky letter for such treatment, but do we really need to know how many A-levels the communications department have and what they favourite software is? As for 100-to-1, here's the thing - if you're going to have a regular format, at least explain the format. Yes, I eventually worked out it was a selection from 100 questions, but who chose the numbers, is it the same 100 questions throughout, etc etc. Now more than ever we have a fanbase that pick and choose their matches, so may - like me - be encountering such a feature for the first time. Other club's programmes do their readers the courtsey of explaining such formats in a couple of lines of small print in the corner of the page - why can't we?
And now, my biggest criticism of all, and this is probably the fault of the commercial department (or whoever 'books' the house ads) rather than the comms lot: My first Valley visit of the year, I see the posters advertising season tickets and 5-year ones, I start to become slightly seduced by the idea of getting a ST again. I wonder how much they are, including these five year jobs. So I flick through the programme to find out and can't. I flick through it again. Forwards, backwards, sideways. No luck. The whole inside cover is given over to match day ticket prices, but NOWHERE in the programme is there a list of next year's ST prices. Probably the most important thing for the non-playing side of the club to be doing at the moments - selling future season tickets - and no-one can be arsed to put a price list in the programme. Farcical. (And don't get me started on the fact that the link to 09/10 season ticket prices on the Ticket News page on the OS still leads to an out of date dead link, 'seasontickets08.ink' indeed. Different medium, same lax attitude.)
To ensure this post isn't 100% moaning, I have to say the statistics pages - with flags for players' nationalities, away attendances, a great layout and colour coordinated substitutions, etc - are the best I have ever seen in a Charlton programme, perhaps in any programme. And the photo of the interpretative dance demonstration at the top of page 17 is my favourite football photo of 2010 to date.
But as I say, it's all about how the club presents itself, and I don't want to single out individuals (I have no idea who they'd be anyway), and I know someone - Henry Irving, probably - will instantly reply with the "two home programmes in four days" caveat, which really doesn't excuse most of the things I've picked on. It's just that I think a lot of fans believe the players have adopted a blase attitude towards the club in our current predicament, picking up their wages and going through the motions. And my first encounter with this season's 'matchday magazine' hints at that same blase attitude permeating other areas of the club. It's these little details that add up to a bigger, sadder picture. A programme that used to be one of the best in the country now resorts to reviewing and Photoshopping decades old action movie DVDs.
Perhaps the most compelling of all these 'little things' - and something that has been picked up on here by others in recent days - is the state of the big screen. It was so sad to see that in the flesh for the first time this season last night. The broken and coloured pixels didn't get me, it was the white lines streaking down the top quarter of the screen. Lines that looked like tear tracks, as if even our scoreboard/screen is now shedding tears over how far Charlton have fallen, and how impotent us fans in the stadium are when it comes to being able to do anything about it. The club don't seem to care (I know they *do*, but they don't *seem* to), only us fans and the big screen do.
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lol
The Big Screen is a nonsense. Apparently it costs a fortune to repair the burnt out pixels. Fair enough, let's just switch it off and be done with it. It's embarassing. I'm sure it's a tiny part of the jigsaw, but as the players are warming up, if their eyes happen to stray to the screen are they likely to be filled with pride in the shirt and a belief that they are esteemed to be wearing it?
Are you saying that the big screen crying may have affected performances?
I have known Kevin for years, it's his style. He is far more than a football writer and in my experience always entertaining. It is surreal and that's always been part of his appeal.
There has never been any advertising revenue behind the programme and the situation hasn't changed. It is funded entirely from its cover price and the ads tend to arise from other commercial deals and are not attributed to the programme. Even the value of the copies handed out in boxes, etc, is not attributed to the programme budget. The club does not have a commercial department or a commercial manager, there are no commercial meetings and there is no member of staff other than Steve Waggott/Steve Kavanagh with an overall responsibility for the various commercial areas. To my knowledge neither of them have any involvement in programme ads. There is no "freelance budget".
I think your point about the point size/word count is complete nonsense. The type is the same size that it's been since 1998 at least. You will get variations in terms of the words you can put on a page as a result of the design template from season to season, but it's not significant.
The season-ticket prices have featured in the last four programmes, along with an article about the offer in each case, the packs should by now have been delivered to the homes of the 15,000 people most likely to buy a season ticket and they are easily accessible on the website. So while I tend to agree that they should have been in last night's programme, I don't think it's a disaster that they weren't.
In reality, it's a lot more difficult to produce an interesting programme in 2010 than it was in 1998 because of the way the technology has changed the context and inevitably that is reflected in lower sales, which also result from lower attendances. I wouldn't like to be trying to put out a fresh local paper sports page or fanzine now either.
I wouldn't defend every aspect of the programme, because that's a question of editorial taste and I'm not the editor, but I think your criticisms of staff are unreasonable given that they are based on one issue and no kind of overall perspective.
400 was the word count for a one page column when we were in the prem and when I wrote for it.
There isn't a budget for columnists any more otherwise I might still be writing for it or was that just an excuse Matt used to get rid of me? : - )
Kevin Nolan is a very good writer and as Algarve says one of his strengths is that he is not formulaic. Not everyone will like his style but you can't please all the people all the time.
Not seen last night's programme but the previous one's had plenty on the 5 year and other ST offers.
Pretty sure that given more resources Matt and the others would do some things differently but I, IMHO, still think it stands up well to most of the away programme I see.
EDIT Airman posted as I was typing.
Reading about Ian King brought back a few memories. He must have been a good player in his time at Leicester but he was well past it when he pitched up at The Valley with his Leicester mate Colin Appleton and made Basey look like Usain Bolt. Anybody moaning about Llera should have seen Ian King play. As for Appleton he had the largest ears I've ever seen on a footballer (including Jeffers) and was even worse. Again he must have been decent once upon a time because Leicester were an established first division (as in top tier) club and he was a regular.
Internet Old Bill all over us mate - watch we say in future anything could be used in evidence .
What did you say JB ?
;-)
I suppose we should be grateful for that at least. Do let us know if you come along again :-)
In what publication? And where did you get this information? It's not on the OS as far as I can see.
Incidentally, Huddersfield Town won League One Programme of the Year 2010 at the Football League Awards last weekend:
http://www.football-league.co.uk/flawards/news/20100314/football-league-awards-round-up_2246530_1992204
I'm looking forward to seeing what it's like on Saturday.
If Charlton have indeed won a rival programme of the year award, then indeed well done to everyone who works on it. As I said, I wasn't personally overly-impressed with the programme v Brighton (the only one I've seen), but I appreciate - as I said in my post - that it came three days after another home game, so content/deadlines were likely affected accordingly.
Also you contradict yourself from one wind up post to the next.
What you actually said initially was
"I know someone ....... will instantly reply with the "two home programmes in four days" caveat, which really doesn't excuse most of the things I've picked on."
But you now say
"but I appreciate - as I said in my post - that it came three days after another home game, so content/deadlines were likely affected accordingly."
I meant what publication awarded Charlton the 'League One Programme of the Year' accolade? Or do you mean the programme itself did!
As I say, the official Football League award for League One went to Huddersfield Town's programme.
The only other people I can think of that might do a Programme of the Year award is FourFourTwo magazine. Is that the one we won?
Either way, I'm interested to see how Hudd's compares to ours.
I'm sorry that you think 'doesn't excuse most' and 'were likely affected' are mutually exclusive phrases. I will have to take your word for it as I don't have the time to analyse my posts in as great detail as you do. I apologise that you had to suffer an inconsistency if that is indeed the case.
I remain interested in knowing whose POTY award we won, if you are willing to share that information (I wasn't there yesterday and don't have a copy of the programme to look said information up in), and well done once again to the team responsible.
Many thanks oohaah.
Just checked said publication's website, but they haven't added this year's awards list yet. Well done to the programme team though. Having said that, 'Best Read' does (on the basis of last year's list on the page linked below) appear to be one of five runners-up categories in addition to the actual Top Three in each division. So in other words, we've finished somewhere between 4th and 8th in the division. Just like we will in the league, I guess...
http://www.pmfc.co.uk/awards.php
I blame Parky
screen rubbish
programme dull
fans too unappreciative of poor football
paper season tickets
did the weather meet your requirements ?
how was the food ?
Never mind - come back soon though....
Hi PL54, this was a while back. A three week old thread that someone resurrected to tell me that Charlton had finished 7th in Programme Monthly's third division programme of the year awards. I have been back since (offered free ST seat v Stockport that I took up) and it was better - not the screen (that's still poop), maybe the programme (didn't buy one), but the general experience. I may be back. Was offered a free ticket v the Jills this weekend too, but thankfully declined. I'm saving myself for the big one next weekend. Hope to see all the CL crowd in the Head of Steam, King's Head, Rat & Ratchet and/or New Grove on Saturday. COME ON YOU REDDDDDDSSSS etc!