Enhancing The Experience

Some of the hard work that is perhaps being done may be with schools, organising class trips and the like but ask yourself, is the value of these events in that of a first time experience or as a follow up experience for those children who have already taken an interest?

Might an alternative approach, albeit with the support of parents and school boards, not be for your club to establish partnerships with the schools in such a way that links your club scholastic performance?

Could this scholastic performance be rewarded in some way by the club – praise slips that in addition to praising also reward the child e.g. “Bring you Dad to a match for free, when you present this praise certificate”. In other words, you get the child’s buy-in, not a decision made for them by others.

Do you have a programme of measures to enhance that first time experience for parent and child?

Met at the gate, taken to the players entrance to the stand, a little peek behind the scenes, suitable child hospitality.

Whatever measures you take will depend on what resources you can muster but crucially they will have greater added value as follow up to the child’s own buy-in to the process than they will have as an incentive to obtaining the child’s buy-in, in the first place.

Who else benefits? What about the parents? More importantly what about grandparents?

Grandparents have a special role with young children. They are the ones who can really spend quality time with the child. They can relieve parents of the pressures of bringing up their children and often share in many of the first time experiences as a result.

Football should aim to be one of those first time experiences but why undermine that experience by forcing children to watch the whole match if their attention span is much less. So how flexible can you be with your concessionary ticket system to attract grandparents with grandchildren and not penalise them financially them if they have to leave early?

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