Coventry Rugby - time to turn to face the strange?

Still don't know what I was waiting for

And my time was running wild

A million dead-end streets, and

Every time I thought I'd got it made

It seemed the taste was not so sweet

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes (turn and face the strange)

Ch-ch-changes, don't wanna be a richer man

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes (turn and face the strange)

Ch-ch-changes, just gonna have to be a different man

Time may change me

But I can't trace time

Changes - David Bowie

Of late, and by that I mean in the past few seasons, I've begun to feel that in many respect Coventry Rugby is something of a contradiction.

I don't mean that in a negative way, far from it. The past decade has seen the club regain the respect of the rugby world following many years of financial mismanagement which nearly saw its complete demise.

It's now a club that has genuine aspirations of promotion into the Premiership and has made real strides off the field to create a more corporate approach to its business structure. The intention was, pre-Covid, and presumably still is, to eventually become virtually self-sustaining financially although by all accounts it has relied in recent years on the generosity of its chairman in particular.

Cov has worked hard to develop its links with the community, something for which it has received plenty of positive press, and rightly so. It's also created a very successful Academy which has already begun to feed highly talented players into the club's first team squad.

The addition of the artificial pitch has become a potential 7 days a week, 52 weeks of the year money maker

It also appears to be a well-regarded venue for local/national businesses to hold conferences or to network. Plans for the development of the ground will strengthen these opportunities still further.

All of which underline just how, under the current chairman and board, Coventry Rugby appears to have taken a far more pragmatic approach to future pathways to the Premiership. It isn't in the business of over-stretching itself and until the building blocks are all in place, the club won't commit itself to anything other than a mid to long term plan for top tier of rugby.

And that is absolutely right and proper.

But there is something missing still. Remember, this is just my opinion - just a lone supporter who is looking from the outside in and probably in doing so would incur the wrath of the board for suggesting what might be something close to heresy for them, were they to ever read this.

I'm not altogether sure what it is that is missing, I just feel that there is something that needs changing. I'm sure I'm going to tie myself in knots here, but I'll try and explain what I mean.

I've been watching Cov, man and boy (or is that boy and man) for the past 60 plus years. I'm 63 now and first went with my parents and grandparents when I was a toddler. I was a pretty much a regular from the mid-60s, a proud holder of a junior vice-president's ticket as a kid and season ticket holder as an adult.

And here's the thing - watching Coventry has changed very little in those 60 years. The experience is just the same - for good or for bad. The world outside the BPA might be very different to what it was back then, but inside the ground on a match day, well it's as if we're in a time capsule.

Hence the contradiction - on one hand it's a club very much with the future in mind, but on the other, well we're still stuck in the last century.

Is that necessarily a concern, though?

Well not for the majority I guess or else others would have said something similar.

But for me, if we are to become a club that truly wants to be part of the elite of English rugby, then the experience of watching Coventry on a Saturday afternoon, or whenever, has to reflect the world around us.

The club has done so much to move with the times as a business enterprise - perhaps now it needs to rethink its match day experience for the majority of those watching the game. I'm not talking about those who sit in hospitality suites and pay lip-service to what's happening on the pitch - no, as long as they keep digging deep into their pockets then leave them be. No, I'm talking about the real supporters, those who turn up week in, week out in all weathers to support the club they love. And indeed, for the next generation of supporters on whom the future of this great club depends.

Look at the clubs in the Premiership and most now have a USP - something that supporters can readily identify with, even if it's just in the name: Leicester Tigers, Sale Sharks, Bristol Bears, Exeter Chiefs, Newcastle Falcons, Northampton Saints, whilst Harlequins and Saracens already had names that lend themselves to easy marketing. Bath and Gloucester are the odd ones out but Gloucester has regrouped in recent years following its association with Hartpury.

Tigers, Sharks, Bears etc (even Warriors and Wasps), allow for some creative branding and provide supporters, particularly the young (the very ones clubs should be looking to attract the most), with something to identify with, something to initially latch on to. For a child attending his or her first few games, merchandise with Sharks and Bears is far more interesting to the eye than, say, just the Cov logo.

Okay, it has an elephant on it, and I suppose something could be made of that, but it is a large and cumbersome beast at the best of times and doesn't really lend itself to an association with a rugby club, unless it's the local pub's third team.

So effective has this rebranding been that now most Premiership clubs aren't even referred to by the town in which they're based. Leicester are simply known as Tigers, Sale as Sharks and Bristol as the Bears. These clubs have become more than just an association with a city and as such I would tentatively suggest they have picked up supporters from a far wider catchment area than just the city itself - and have done so without losing any of their local support.

Were Cov to do something similar, it would also be a sign that a club that in the past has often been criticised, rightly in my view, for being too traditional and reluctant to move with the times is now readying itself for life in the Premiership. And not just to compete with the best teams in the country on the pitch, it is also gearing up for the challenges that come with being a Premiership club off it.

It would send a clear message to the PRL/RFU that this is no longer the Coventry of old, it's a club that will add something special, something new, to what is the best league in Europe.

I thought we were beginning to rebrand the club when the badge was changed a few years ago. That was a sensible move in many respects but on its own, I'm not altogether sure what it has achieved. Has it made any appreciable difference to the way the club is perceived beyond the confines of the city itself? I'm not convinced. If it hasn't, then why do it?

But changing the name of the club should be just the start. For a few hundred quid from a local sponsor, the club could purchase some of those foam hands that seem to be de rigueur at sporting venues these days, cards with 'Try' on one side and 'Penalty' on the other, a few banners, a vuvuzela or two - just to create a bit more atmosphere.

Anything to gets us away from the Covvvv-Vennn-Treee' dirge that springs up every so often during a game. It's painful to listen to...I know the PA has taken some stick over the last few months for the musical memes during a break in play, but they do add to the occasion. We need more of that sort of entertainment provided it doesn't impinge on the game itself (which in fairness it has at times of late).

We also need to reinvent the club mascot. Donny, unsurprisingly, has a Knight for its mascot, but it's cartoon appearance is a winner with the kids and whoever is inside the costume has created a real character, walk and all...

If Coventry is to increase the numbers of youngers watching on a match day, it needs to make the whole Saturday afternoon experience far more relevant and accessible to them. They need to be involved more pre and post-match and made to feel as if they are an important part of the club's success on the pitch. Why isn't there, for instance, a junior section on the website with competitions and quizes with prizes that can be collected on match days? It's a bit of a bugbear for me - youngsters live and breathe the internet these days. Put simply, I can't help but feel Coventry Rugby needs to better understand its audience.

The club has improved it's social media output hugely (all credit to Dan Lewis for this), but why can't there be a focus on younger supporters too? So many of the Academy and younger professional players will have really good IT skills - get them involved as part of their commitment to the club - not only are they IT savvy, they are also far closer to the age group the club need to be attracting. They'll know better than anyone what will inspire the next generation of Coventry supporters. In short, use the resources you already have to their best advantage.

The Caldy game a couple of weeks ago showed just how much of a buzz can be created pre-kick off. It doesn't have to be mini rugby competitions though - it could be non-rugby related activities. Make use of the screen too - Donny showed their win against Scottish before kick off - why don't we do something like that? If there are players injured or not playing, get them out and about meeting supporters, signing autographs, serving at a bbq - there must be loads of ways to involve them, selling raffle tickets, promoting future events...just a question of being a bit more creative.

There might well be many supporters, in fact maybe it's most, who don't want to see Cov change in this way, believing perhaps that if/when Cov is promoted, the club should be no different in character to the one they currently support, just with a bigger and better squad and an improved stadium to enable it to fulfil the RFU's Premiership ground regulations.

But would that be enough for potential future stakeholders, either new supporters coming to Cov for the first time or big businesses looking for potential investment opportunities. I'm not so sure it would be.

The razzmatazz of the elite tier, the fireworks, the bands, the mascots on the pitch, the involvement of youngsters, the flags and colour that are all part of the Premiership these days are a necessary addition - and we need to be preparing for that now, not in the June and July of the season we get promoted. It's not something that needs to change overnight, but it is something that we ought to be considering. Perhaps we already are; my apologies if that is the case. And if it is, then I hope supporters are involved in the process too.

Back in the late 1970's and early 80s as a club we failed to adapt to the emergence of the professional era and then spent the next 30 years playing catch up, a period in the club's history which certainly wasn't its finest and one that almost resulted in the club going under.

More recently, the club has shown itself to be far more forward-thinking, and I'm sure it's been developing ways to best adapt to the modern era...

...personally, though, I'd like to see it go a lot further, without over-committing itself financially of course.

Much of what I've included here might not fit in with the general consensus of the what direction the club ought to be taking is, but I'd certainly like to see Cov rebrand itself and in doing so make itself far more appealing to a wider audience.

At some point in our lives, we all have to turn and face the strange...

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