Whilst the Olympic Games kicked off in style in the Far East, this weekend also saw the start of the 2008-09 football season.

Don’t get me wrong, I genuinely have a strong interest in sport. I work in the industry, I read the back pages on a daily basis and will more often than not choose to watch live sports coverage over the nightly ritual that is EastEnders or Coronation Street.  But even I was taken to another level this weekend.  In danger of being a football widow, I not only found myself joining my other half at one live match of the opening weekend – but two!

First up was a trip to Charlton, my adopted ‘local’ team in SE London, where The Valley welcomed the newly-promoted ‘boys from the valleys’ – Swansea City.  Nicknamed ‘The Real League’, it really is true-grit football.  Sitting in the stands with 21,000 others, in the pouring rain that defines August in this country, I was again hit by the dedication and passion of all the fans that follow their team, week-in, week-out.  It is something that astounds me everytime I go to a match. However many times I experience it, it never fails to amaze me.

This was the first match of the season and it was a true portrayal of the optimism that every club has at the start of a new year.  Charlton, vying for a place in the Play-Offs at the end of last season, were back to an even playing ground.  Forgotten was the disappointment of the spring months, when they realised that getting back up into the Premiership was not going to happen this year. Fans and players alike are back with high hopes for the next ten months.  This optimism is even reflected in the early-bird discount for season tickets ‘Buy your season ticket before the first weekend, and if we get into the Premiership next year you’ll pay the same price for your ticket’.

Next up was a trip to Wembley Stadium for what is traditionally known as the curtain-raiser of the football season – the Community Shield. A showpiece match, this was altogether a different picture – well apart from the rain, which followed me all weekend but what else would you expect! 

Wembley, the national stadium, was hosting the reigning European club team, Manchester United, and the proud victors of the legendary FA Cup, Portsmouth.  However, whilst there may have been four times as many people, numerous footballing legends in situe (Geoff Hurst represented McDonald’s, the FA’s Presenting Partner), and inflated prices at the concession stands, the underlying themes amongst the fans were still the same as the day before. Passion, pride, commitment, belief.  This was demonstrated to me as we were leaving.  Following a penalty shoot out, Manchester United were victorious once again.  As we were heading down the stairwells, I overheard a voice of a young boy telling his dad, “It doesn’t matter that we lost.  We were the better team”.  This just about summed up my experience over the weekend. 

The Greatest Show on Earth may be taking place in Beijing. But for the hundreds and thousands of football fans who turn out of their homes on a weekly basis to follow the highs and lows of their team, one thing is absolutely certain.  Football in this country really is ‘the beautiful game’, and it is refusing to be overshadowed by the Olympics.

By Sara Wilson on August 12th, 2008

Tags: Barclays Premier League, Beijing 2008, Football, Olympics

No comments

With the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games just around the corner, Britain’s finest athletes are in the final stages of preparation in their bid to take gold at the ‘Greatest Show on Earth’.  For the 313 Team GB athletes the competition will be the culmination of years of precision planning in an attempt to streamline their performance and give them the best possible chance of hearing the National Anthem broadcast around the world.

The attention-to-detail for every single member of Team GB is immense.  Away from the limelight they each have their own training programmes, which not only focus on the physical and technical aspect of their performance, but also offer advice on their nutrition, the psychology of their performance, their travel and logistics - the list is endless.

Why do all these individual factors, however big, however small, count so much?  Let’s go back at Athens.  If we take five of the Gold medals won by Team GB, look at the time of each of these and work out the difference between the Gold and Silver places in these events, it adds up to 0.545 of one second.  If Team GB had taken the Silver medal in each of these events instead of the Gold, they would have dropped seven places on the medal table.  So you see, every little thing really does count.

A key factor of any athlete’s performance is their kit; competition clothing, footwear, equipment, their drink.  Powerade, Official Sports Drink of Team GB and the Olympic Games, has just launched a new campaign looking at this.  The essence of the new ‘InnerGear’ concept illustrates that no matter how sophisticated an athlete’s outer gear is (sports kit), it is not effective without your InnerGear – what you put inside your body.    Let’s put this into perspective; research has shown that as little as a 2% drop in hydration can seriously affect an athlete’s performance. The athletes in Beijing will have to combat the extreme weather conditions if they are to compete at the top level of their event so proper hydration is essential.

So where do I come in. Picture the scene; I’m sat at my desk enjoying another day at the Synergy office, facing the trials and tribulations that rear their heads on a daily basis, when the phone rings.  “Hi, can you please look into getting me three Team GB athletes for a photo-shoot. In London. On the same day.  And there is only one day that we can do – in a couple of weeks. Which is just before the Olympic Games, so yes we realise that not many athletes are free at the moment. In these three sports.  Oh, and by the way…they need to be naked.”

Breathe.  Stay calm.  Speak. “No problem. Leave it with me, I’ll see what I can do.”

So there it began, and following a race against time, complex diary management and persuasion like you have never seen before, on a sunny day in June I found myself in a studio on Caledonian Road witnessing Phillips Idowu (Triple Jump), Rebecca Romero (Track Cycling) and Gregor Tait (Aquatics), stripped of all their performance clothing, and captured without their outer gear by renowned photographer Nadav Kander.  The result; a series of breathtaking images highlighting the athlete’s strength, fitness and power, showing the effort and commitment that is put into their training and being at the top of their sport.

I will certainly be tuning in at 8.08pm on the 8^th of the 8^th  for the Opening Ceremony, and probably glued to my screen for the following 16 days, to watch the athletes in action and hopefully witness history-making competitions as rivals pit themselves against each other in the attempt to take Gold.  At the same time, I’ll be watching three particular athletes very closely, to see how their ‘InnerGear’ is hopefully helping them to achieve their lifelong dreams.

By Sara Wilson on August 4th, 2008

Tags: Olympics, Sponsorship consultants

No comments