In yesterdays Herald Alan Christie "the scribbler in the stand got his belated recognition
Alan who has reported on Hawks matches since the club was born in 1997 and before that on Accies and GHK for too many years to mention In his time he will have covered more games than the Hawks squad have had hot dinners
Alan is a retired teacher and like Bill McLaren always meticulous in his preparation


THE HERALD REPORTS
KEVIN FERRIE ON THURSDAY: Good to see our pro teams (belatedly) introducing some novel ideas


Duncan Weir promotes the Glasgow team in front of one of the city’s iconic buildings.
, 25 Aug 2010 22.12

As Kenny Baillie, Glasgow Warriors’ chief executive, outlined his marketing ideas a few days ago, he deserved a bit of a pat on the back, but so did a more venerable figure among the listening press.

Baillie almost seemed sheepish when explaining that the old standard “I belong to Glasgow” is to be used as a theme song, but he should not have been.

A good idea is a good idea whenever it is acted upon and I felt obliged to point out that his thinking is exactly in line with that of Alan Christie, a freelance rugby reporter, who came up with the very same idea, among others, almost a decade ago.

Alan felt that in seeking to build an audience, Glasgow rugby should capitalise on the fact that many citizens have a real pride in their city and would love to have a sports team to follow, but are uncomfortable with taking their kids to watch the Old Firm.

He believed the Warriors should be pushing the city’s identity at every opportunity. Among his other suggestions were that promotional material should be presented in Rennie Mackintosh style and that any music played in the stadium should be by Glasgow performers.

Kellock responded with relish to the idea that he could lead a Celtic Tigers XV against a touring side
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I wrote about his thoughts at the time, recommending they be seized upon, but they were not.

In similar vein, it was great to receive some promotional material recently relating to the Italian teams’ involvement in this season’s Magners League, which has led to the Veneto Tourist Board linking with Jet2 to put together packages combining golf in Northern Italy with attending Magners League matches at Treviso and Aironi.

That reminded me of conversations dating back at least five or six years with Archie Ferguson, the former Scottish Rugby Union board member. Archie, who was a great champion of Italian involvement in the Magners League (he once came up with some wonderful research that explained how they could claim ancestral association because, in their pillaging days, the Celts had annexed part of Northern Italy), is another keen amateur marketeer.

Another of his bright ideas was that the Magners League should be looking for opportunities to link up with other events such as Celtic Connections or the Edinburgh Festival and Fringe.

It may be that such promotions have taken place but, if so, they have not been communicated in this direction, yet here are the newbies in the Magners League taking exactly that approach, while attendances at Edinburgh and Glasgow remain among the lowest in professional rugby.

That description also applies to matches involving the national team and it was encouraging that, contrary to the once-stated policy that all home Tests should be played at Murrayfield, common sense has prevailed and this season’s meeting with Samoa will take place at Aberdeen’s Pittodrie.

The thorny issue of raising revenue from glamorous games remains, which is why the selection of Al Kellock as Magners Dream Team captain this week brought back memories of another idea championed in The Herald.

At the risk of being repetitive, it is several years since we proposed the creation of a Celtic Tigers XV that could face one of the big touring teams on an annual basis, and Kellock responded with relish to the idea that he might get the chance to lead that team.

In an ideal world, given that Ireland and Wales get much better gates for their Test matches, Murrayfield would host such matches for the first few years to give Scotland, poor relations among the Celtic nations, a leg up.

Realistically, that is unlikely and another issue would be the concerns registered by the various regional and provincial sides regarding player welfare.

Yet surely those teams could see the potential for raising revenues of a proposal that would be hugely attractive to Magners (or whoever takes over the league sponsorship), not to mention the league’s various broadcasting rights holders.

David Jordan, rightly praised for having run the Magners League almost single-handedly in recent years as the organisation underwent an administrative shake-up this week, once dismissed the Celtic Tigers as nothing more than blue-sky thinking.

Perhaps, but dare we hope that, as he was also Glasgow’s chief executive when Alan Christie first put forward his ideas, he might just draw inspiration from the manner in which the way of the Warrior has at last also become the way of the Weegie?

This article was originally posted on 27-Aug-2010, 07:09 by Hugh Barrow.
Last updated by Hugh Barrow on 27-Aug-2010, 07:12.