by Dirk Gently »
09 Jul 2010 16:52
Hoop Blah Dirk Gently It's a product being offered for sale, not a ground-breaking piece of high art.
Get over yourselves and if you don't like it then don't buy it!
I know that's you without you're STAR hat on Dirk but it would seem a lot of fans do take an interest, even a pride perhaps, in the clubs kit. They certainly do when they buy one, which at the end of the day is in the clubs best interests.
Some fans, and STAR members, will probably buy this despite not liking it very much because they want to support the club.
More in respone to the official starliason: I thought STARs aim was to support and promote the fans opinions and needs with the club. It sounds like quite a defeatest attitude you have on this when plausable suggestions on a better involvement have been put forward in this thread.
I'd also suggest that more people have been disappointed with the design than those who've said it's great (vocal dissenters effect aside that is). You're never going to please everyone of course, but most companies spend a considerable amount of time and effort trying to understand their customers wants and needs for product development. Seems a shame the club don't do the same on this one really.
Maybe, but we seem to have this same conversation every year - because individual views are so diverse I don't think that there's any kit which would would ever satisfy the majority of people. It's also a fact of life that the majority of people who are Ok with the kit design (or who even like it!) keep quiet, and there's a few people who make a big stink about how terrible it is. Personally, I think that many of them would kick up the same stink every year, just because they can - every year's kit design seems to be the "worst.kit.ever".....
As mentioned, it's unlikely that the club will do polls or consultation for the reasons given that there will always be more people voing against a kit than for it .... and never forget that "The Bell End" at City of Manchester Stadium was down to a supporter consultation exercise which got hi-jacked.
So I'm pretty pragmatic about it really. At the end of the day it's a shirt design, and it's virtually impossible to get one that everyone will like - no-one is forced to buy it, and there are plenty of ways of supporting the team without having to pay money buying a shirt.
Like many others, I supported us when we wore the light blue "Argentina" shirt in the early 80s - we weren't any less Reading FC or any less well supported then - in fact, you couldn't really buy replica shirts then. It's a shirt, not part of our heritage or culture - and we'd still support the team if they played in pink with sky blue polka-dots!
Yes, the club might sell more shirts if they do some kind of consultation, but I know that they're limited in the designs available and are also not a big enough market to exert much leverage on the maufacturers to change that. But that's a commercial decision for them, trying to match better the "wants" of their customers, not the "needs" of their customers.
So I'm sorry, as a "fans' rights" issue this isn't on my personal radar - there are much more important battles in the world of football to fight than this one.
The above is my personal view - from what i know about how STAR works, I'd imagine that if enough STAR members were to suggest to STAR why this is such an important issue - together with convincing arguments that could be put to the club - then this would be taken forward.
