APFSCIL PUBLICITY
The establishment in the minds (and the contacts lists) of football's decision makers and the game's media of a small respectable new organisation can never be an easy task. Many in the game regard organised groups of supporters as at least a nuisance if not a threat, while it is fans who show aggression, either physical or in campaigning against perceived wrongs, who provide the sort of material which the media believe will generate interest or sales. Despite the commendable efforts of a series of Administrative Committee members who have undertaken a Publicity portfolio on behalf of the Association, successful media exposure over its 25 years has been minimal, and is as difficult to achieve today as at the outset. Indeed the poor initial response from the media to the inauguration of the Association caused its first Press & Publicity Officer to resign in frustration!
Nevertheless there have been some successes, though often this has been limited to publicity achieved locally by individual clubs, in which their involvement with APFSCIL has been mentioned as a side-issue. Early national exposure was restricted to the January 1976 "Football News", the May 1976 "Football" magazine and "Recreation Today" - hardly organs of widest readership. Progressively, however, pro-active contact with magazines and cultivation of friendships with journalists has prompted the occasional article about the Association, or reference to it in features about particular groups of supporters with a story to tell. In some cases, such publicity was engineered by inviting the reporter concerned to travel to and from their game by the APFSCIL club. In 1977, the Association also made its inaugural appearance in the "Other Useful Addresses" section of Rothmans Football Yearbook. Regular references to APFSCIL also appeared in the Football Programme Directory. A scrapbook of these early items of publicity and pictorial record of some of APFSCIL's events was created but, sadly, it disappeared without trace at one of the transitions from one Press & Publicity Officer to the next. Early written contact with the media was supported with a simple briefing note about the organisation but since 1983 a Handbook has been prepared annually which, as well as providing background information about the Association, has offered each member club the opportunity to publicise their own existence, activities and point of contact. This document, principally for external use and distribution, has been supplemented by an annual internal contacts list providing each member club with the addresses and contact details of the comparative officers, team captains etc. of all others. Since March 1997, information about the Association, contact information for each member club and minutes of recent meetings have been available on its web site at : www.apfscil.u-net.com. Ian Todd |
