It caught my eye when recently I was scanning the news pages devoted to local sport – a report of a football side playing in the bizarrely named, ‘Earthbound Electrical Cornwall League’. This, of course, has to be better than one beginning, ‘Heaven bound’; after all, nobody would wish to play in a team made up of the recently deceased (although it might bring new meaning to the term ‘ghosting in at the far post’).
This idle musing set off in me a chain of thought and a realisation of just how much team sports rely on sponsorship to ease financial constraints – indeed, to keep them going during these parlous times exacerbated by Covid-19.
In the same edition of the weekly there were reports of teams competing in the ‘Torbay Clearance Service SDFL Tournament’, the ‘T20 Kernow Crash League’ (cricket, although it sounds like stock car racing), the ‘Clive Rosevear East Cornwall Premier League Cup’ and the ‘Manor Building Company Premier Division Cup’. Vastly different this from the days of my youth when local football and cricket clubs alike plied their trade, on the whole, in the simply entitled, ‘Plymouth and District League, Divisions one to four’.
Nowadays, however, it is not only leagues and cup competitions that receive sponsorship, for there can be relatively few football clubs, at all levels, who do not have the name of a benefactor emblazoned upon the front of their shirts.
There is, I’m led to believe, a village football team in North Devon which has printed upon the chest of their shirts the name of the local funeral directors; in black, mind you, so tastefully done.
In the professional game virtually every club in the land are sponsored in many directions, team shirts being the most obvious. Plymouth Argyle have, for many years now, been backed quite considerably by the nation’s best known and prized pasty makers – indeed, one of the most successful companies based on the South West peninsula.
Rumour has it that every contracted player has, before every fixture, to consume at least a couple of the company’s pastry enclosed products – although such cynicism could be a touch inaccurate. Whatever, this vibrant company has been a good friend to The Pilgrims, especially during these virus blighted times.
One great plus with the Plymouth club, however, is that they have never adulterated the name of the stadium in which they have played for the past 118 years. It was called Home Park when they moved there in 1903 and that, in its simplicity, remains the name today. Such cannot be said of so very many other outfits. To be fair, a number of these will have moved from their original venues and will have adopted the name of the company or patron that has helped, often massively, in the creation of new stadia.
With many, though, such is not the case; they simply have cast aside long treasured titles of their homes in the pursuit of largesse. Thus the home of Stoke City, for many years patriotically named ‘Britannia’, is now, excruciatingly, ‘The bet365 Stadium’; some nobility is restored in that it is located on ‘Stanley Matthews Way’, whilst there is a statue of the great man outside of the ground.
Mansfield Town’s ‘Field Mill’ abode is now the ‘One Call Stadium’ – a most promising appellation if one is trying to contact them, but not the most becoming of monikers for what is one of the oldest ‘professional’ football grounds in the world. Rochdale FC’s ‘Spotland’ is now the ‘Crown Oil Arena’; Peterborough United has renamed their ‘London Road’ ground as the ‘Weston Homes Stadium’, and so it goes on.
On a more poignant note, in 2019 Queens Park Rangers renamed their Loftus Road ground ‘The Kiyan Prince Foundation Stadium’, after fans voted for the change in honour of their former youth team player who was fatally stabbed in 2006. A fitting tribute.
Such a revolution, of course, is not restricted to football; virtually all major sports and participants, especially if covered by television, will enjoy the patronage of sponsorship – and the more successful they are, the more bountiful the rewards.
Such extends well beyond team sports; top snooker players, whilst usually being impeccably attired, will have their waistcoats festooned with small logos advertising amongst other things the likes of betting companies and breweries; darts pro’s likewise; tennis stars, too, flaunt trademarks of world famous companies – many in the field of sports goods, equipment and clothing, whilst virtually all tournaments these days have their long held titles preceded by the sobriquet of their sponsor.
Clearly vast amounts of vital finance is brought into a multitude of sports at all levels by such enterprises. I, though, have no envy for those who benefit from it all, as I realise that even if I played in this age, with my inherent ineptitude it is unlikely I would be backed with sufficient funds to buy a packet of crisps.