Opinion: an online player of year announcement is a rare mis-step for a community club
Rob Fielding says that the lack of an in-person awards event doesn’t fit the club’s goal of being a community club and he hopes an online announcement doesn’t become the norm.
Rob Fielding writes…
It’s a surprise that a community focused club have turned down the chance to allow fans to celebrate player achievements in person…
When Carol and Kevin Shanahan took over Port Vale FC in 2019 they made it clear that they wanted to establish the club as a community asset. They wanted to see the Valiants embedded in the heart of the Burslem community.
Much work has clearly gone on to try and realise that goal – the thousands of food parcels sent out during Covid, the development of the fanzone and link up with Staffordshire University, the rise of the Port Vale Foundation, the Football League award in 2021 and Carol’s own award as 2022’s Women of the Year’s community heroine.
And so on to the player of the year awards…
In recent years, changes to the awards night have been justified – there was a closed doors event in 2021, due to Covid, while last season’s event was delayed after the club’s successful play-off campaign. However, this season there have been no such issues, so it comes as a surprise that the player of the year awards are set to be announced via social media rather than at an actual event.
Quite apart from the chance for the club to earn a bit of corporate revenue, it’s a surprise that a community focused club have turned down the chance to allow fans to celebrate player achievements in person.
Tickets were circulated for an April event which never took place – the price for that event was £1,000 per table of ten (including a sponsorship opportunity). That price seems to clash with the ethos of a community-driven club. At a hundred quid per head, it seemed to be an event for the well-off, not the masses. Of course there’s room for both in today’s society – and Vale would be foolish to turn down corporate revenue from local businesses.
However, there’s two problems with making a player of the year event a corporate one. Firstly, it’s a heck of a lot of money for, with all due respect for those involved, for companies to fork out just for an awards night. Secondly, a player of the year awards event isn’t really the right setting for a corporate bash, it’s a mass event for the ordinary fans to attend and to be part of. In fact, an inclusive player of the year event is exactly the sort of thing that a community-focused club should do.
It’s therefore no surprise that, with the wrong pitch, the April event was quietly dropped. By pricing too high, there is now no corporate revenue to be gained whereas in theory setting more affordable prices would have resulted in better sales, the event going ahead and all the ticket and bar revenue which the event would have produced.
This looks like a rare mis-step by the club. I hope it is as I wouldn’t want to see “player of the year by social media” become a regular thing at the club.
Let’s be clear. Nobody is going to get things right 100% of the time and our club owners have got many more things right than wrong. However, I do hope that they learn from this and that an inclusive, in-person and reasonably priced player of the year event occurs next season.
Unless it’s delayed by a play-off campaign of course!
Previous winners
And while we’re on the subject, here’s our list of every Port Vale player of the year winner since the trophy was introduced back in 1967.