Earlier in the week, I wrote a piece on the reality of Sevco and how it’s just settling in for Steven Gerrard.
One of the things I mentioned was the anger he and his management team felt at the way the team were made to travel to Spain on the budget airline EasyJet.
As I pointed out, less than a day elapsed before the club was announcing a new travel partner; Thomas Cook.
They did this with no fanfare whatsoever.
There was a reason for that, of course. Thomas Cook is hardly a sexy option. They, too, are a budget airline albeit on a higher level. I like Thomas Cook. I’ve gone on two holidays that they ran and they were an excellent and efficient company.
That’s why I have to assume that the decision by Sevco not to offer their fans a good deal on charter flights to their first round European tie was not one that was made by the travel firm. Sevco has said the costs would have been too high. And their fans are interpreting that as something the travel company should be blamed for.
The criticism already coming the way of the company is ridiculous. Sevco’s problem is that it cannot organise anything correctly. This is a club that is yet to have a strip launch, a club who’s fans still don’t know when they can buy the strips or from where. They are a joke, a complete shambles from top to bottom, and I am not surprised they have made a mess of this.
But the bile pouring in the direction of Thomas Cook is something they should get used to. The most intolerant fans in the whole of Europe are their customers now, and that’s not going to end well for anyone at the firm. Sevco fans have enjoyed one foray abroad for competitive football in their six year history; the bigger the game the more of them will travel and the more of them that do the more money Thomas Cook will make … but they less they’ll like it.
There’s an element of the Sevco support which treats Scottish streets as if they own them. They march down them in fascist formation in the black garb of an ISIS offshoot, and I use that term very deliberately as laced throughout is religious intolerance.
Thomas Cook has no idea what’s coming their way, but if their people want to check Sevco forums tonight they might just get a taste of their future.