FORMER chairman Stuart Timperley admitted Watford was living on its reputation as a family and community club and was not actually living up to it.

Yet, when the Hornets gained promotion to the Premiership in 1999, some eight years after Timperley's observation, they had just 5,139 season-ticket holders. Now, despite three seasons back in Division One, they have retained just under 8,000.

The responsibility for that improvement cannot be wholly down to the team, which has under-performed for three seasons, so the marketing department must take a bow.

Watford's image has improved considerably since the short-term stupidity of dramatic price-hikes for the Premiership season, orchestrated by the little-missed commercial boss Mark Jones.

Watford's current director of marketing, Ed Coan, is much more schooled into the Watford ethos, one which he helped to shape in the mid-1980's.

Was it a coincidence that he opted to go freelance during the Jack Petchey era and did not return full-time to the fold until after Jones' departure?

Coan took a deep breath and chose to ignore the question: "I am under no illusions the biggest sales and marketing tool is a winning team. The only thing the marketing of any club can achieve is maximise the good times and mitigate the ill-effects of a losing team," he said.

"The main reason I came back was to reactivate the facets the club possessed really strongly in the 1970's-80's. The club was visible in the community in those days, but this time we have focused on the actual tangible things we can do for the community.

"One of my main aims, when I came back, was to make real positive efforts to get the family/community ethos back here. It had not really gone away, but it was extremely fragmented. It had an image, but no strategy to it."

Coan picked up the reins in December 1999 on a part-time basis, making the full commitment after his freelance commitments had been fulfilled, in July last year.

"I would agree with Stuart Tiimperley's observation. The club was living to a degree on its reputation as a community/family club," said the marketing director."

In fact it was so bad, he was on the verge of ending his active freelance involvement with Watford when Graham Taylor returned along with the impetus to re-establish the successful principles of yesteryear.

Although still undertaking the residue of freelance commitments, he was acting-chief-executive when the club won the Division Two title but moved quietly into the background during the time of Howard Wells and Mark Jones.

"I think the club had been guilty of sitting on the image, much in the way Marks and Spencer did before they found they had lost their identity and had to fight really hard to get back to where they are today."

There had been some short-term thinking in an effort to milk the rise to the Premiership, but if the club really wanted to regain that old family/community ethos, then the powers that be had to either put up or shut up.

"There is a commercial return on all this and the fact that TOTAL have chosen to sponsor the entire families, youth and community enterprise proves the point," he said this week.

"Back in 1987, we did a massive survey in conjunction with Leicester University, and 87 per cent of fans said they felt the community approach was as important as winning matches. Our customers had told us that."

One of the fist significant marketing ploys, second time around, was the launching of From You To Us, a brochure explaining what the club is all about and the reasons behind sundry decisions. The concept has since been labelled by the Premiership as a "best practice in football" and the FA have asked the Watford marketing director how they can persuade every one of their clubs to follow suit.

"In terms of bringing the family and community back into play," said Coan, "we formed one department: families, youth and community with Glen Calverley in charge of it and all these different strands reporting to him."

The various strands "become or have become pillars" he pointed out. They are Football in the Community, Watford Learning, the charity work (endorsing shirts, donating balls for raffles, personal appearances etc), the Junior Hornets; family facilities on match days, and then the official Watford FC charity fund, which is operated independently by the Hertfordshire Community foundation.

The charity foundation exists to make donations with Watford having laid down the criteria, and, as a result, the club has given more than £20,000 away in the last 18 months.

There has been a return to uniform club branding with all the literature and signeage being printed in the Meta typeface.

"Andy Simmons, who was retained as designer, must take a lot of credit for this but we have still got a long way to go. Had we built the new Main Stand, there would have been greater uniformity. At the moment, with that old stand, it still looks a bit higgledy-piggledy.

"Yet, we as a club are more than punching our weight in that there are very few clubs with two global brands behind it," he said of Toshiba and TOTAL.

In fact, Watford had another lucrative offer for sponsorship but decided to turn it down because it did not suit well with the club's image. Toshiba came in and were happy to sign on further proof that the club's marketing structure is on the right lines.

The players and staff also play a part in the community work, which is more structured than of old. As Coan remarked, the new reality in football may result in players staying longer at a club and increasing their association with the public.

The point about association is well made for Watford have tended to employ more fans on the administrative side.

"They have a real enthusiasm and care for the club which goes a long way. All these things rely on the enthusiasm of the staff," he said.

Yet with cutbacks and the feeling of having come through the eye of a financial hurricane, how do you market Watford now?

"The budget is cut and so things I would like to do, like advertising on the Met line and putting posters around the town, have to go on hold," admitted the marketing director. "Sixty per cent of our season tickets are sold to people with WD postcodes. We have retained the bulk of last season's season-ticket holders so we have got the prices right, even after the disappointment of last season.

"Yet 2.5 million people live within 30 minutes of the ground, but the vast majority live south of here: North London. I want to crack Watford we had 38,000 at the Play-off Final. They are not all from WD postcodes but the majority have that connection.

"My main mission in life is to crack the people of Watford. Get down here next Monday. I know there is a lot about our operation we have not got right but we are working on it."

August 23, 2002 13:00