You’ve got to hand it to The Daily Record; that paper does its best.
Today they have been forced to run an interview they might not have wanted to, but I can tell you right now what happened here and why it’s a story.
It seems, to me, that The Record went looking for somebody to clue them in on what Hummel are likely to have offered the Ibrox club. And instead of getting a jolly-happy-time story they got a horror story instead. They ran it – they had to – but they also tried to spin it.
And there’s just no spinning this one, I’m afraid.
Their article is sort of properly headlined; “Rangers aren’t big enough for Nike claims football kit consultant”, if you accept it’s talking about Sevco and if you subtract the fact that the consultant went out of his way to say that no major manufacturer would touch them … but essentially, it’s right on the nose. He did mention Nike specifically.
But the sub-heading appears to offer some crumb of comfort:
“Hummel last week were confirmed as the Ibrox side’s new strip manufacturer and Neal Heard believes the club can be a huge money-spinner.”
And it does. But not for Sevco! Hummel will certainly make more cash out of the Gullibilly’s than they would from most of their other client base – “we cater to the losers”, don’t forget – but that doesn’t translate into a pot of gold for the club itself.
The expert, Neal Heard, was scathing as he laid out the horrible facts which every Sevco fan should now be well and truly tuning into.
“No disrespect to (them) but the likes of Nike are too big for them now,” he said. “If you’re not in the Champions League, let’s face it no one is paying attention to the teams from the smaller leagues. So if you’re Hummel and you want to try get a bit of the replica kit market – it’s A) who can we afford? B) who’s going to give us a profile? and C) who have a lot of following so we’ll sell so many? (Sevco) are affordable, quite frankly because of the situation they find themselves in.”
Some would rephrase that as “the state they find themselves in” and much of that is their own fault, as let’s not forget Charles Green was able to secure them a deal with Puma. But with Green and Ashley now away from the table, and the club stuck with the negotiating geniuses of Paul Murray and Dodgy Dave King, it’s no wonder the interest of genuinely big companies has died off. That and the way, the appalling way, King treated them.
He did offer one possible reason for Sevco fans to buy the shirts though. He thinks the design will be something they will enjoy; “decent graphics.”
“I think Hummel have been pretty savvy here, so I reckon you’ll see some kind of change from the normal Rangers shirt – it will be blue but they might go for a two-tone blue. But if they have any sense they’ll put a pattern or band on there, that’s what people want.”
Sadly, for Sevco, this doesn’t mean a flute band.
I hate to break it to them, but a big ridiculous stripe is probably the best they can hope for.
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