Customer Service Bournemouth Style

If you have never heard of Eddie Mitchell you clearly didn’t pay attention to the Football League this week.

Mitchell, you see is Bournemouth’s chairman and right now, he is extremely unpopular. Nothing to unusual about that, most Chairman are – and in the Cherries case, perhaps understandably so.

With due apologies to any Bournemouth fans, I only know briefly what has happened at the club. But to give a summary, as best I understand Manager quits, best players leave for big sums and replacements aren’t found.

The story is repeated at many clubs all around the country and the Chairman takes the flack. I have been on marches against owners at my club in the past so I know how it feels and I know how much passion is aroused by these things.

I also know that what Eddie Mitchell did on Saturday was quite extraordinary, and I might venture, unprecedented.

Footage is available here if you haven’t seen it, but just to explain, after they lost to Chesterfield on Saturday Mitchell was subjected to quite a lot of chanting “We want Mitchell out” that sort of thing – again nothing too unusual in that.

Where this differs, though is that most Chairman don’t grab a microphone and scream “Who do you want in then, eh? You got a name?”

I do sort of admire Mitchell for arguing (speaking as an argumentative person I would say this!) especially in the face of such overwhelming disquiet but whether this is the right sort of strategy I am not sure.

People love football – as we have discussed elsewhere on these blogs recently – and they love football far more than they love any sport. And they probably don’t appreciate, at the time they are most angry, being shouted at. And shouted at, it must be said, by the very person they are angry at.

It is a basic rule of customer service to say that, if it gets to a shouting match the problem has gone too far.

And therein is the moral of the story. At your leagues there are going to be the odd issue. Whether those issues are a problem team or even, dare we say it, a ref that’s not very good, there will always be some issue and as a local person you are best placed to deal with them.

And, cruically, nip them in the bud before it gets to the unedifying scales we saw at the weekend.
The moral of the story for Football Chairmen remains the same as it ever did, though: Try not to lose a talismanic manager and all your best players without replacing them.

Just trying to help, Eddie!