Design for Football
Tranmere Rovers Football Club
By now this will seem like ancient history, but for those of us who lived and worked there through it, the period between 1992 and 2001 will always bring back amazing memories of an incredible time when this Club was within touching distance of glory. Of course, since then they have also plumbed new depths...
Throughout that period, I was responsible for the creative design of almost everything to do with the public face of the Club. From Annual Reports to advertising, point-of-sale material in the Club shop, presentations and corporate brochures to potential club and match sponsors, soccer schools leaflets, community newsletters and promotional material, certificates, merchandise catalogues, team sheets, the award-winning matchday programme 'Rovers Review' - to which I also contributed articles and subsequently edited for eighteen months - and in one season I even designed the club's home kit (hence the image of the quite brilliant Pat Nevin on the home page's link). Very happy memories...
Below are the Programme Covers from 1995-96, 1998-99 and 1999-2000, and some double-page spreads from 99-00.
BBC's 'Match Of The Day' Magazine named the 99-00 season issue as the 4th best Programme throughout England. “A very distinctive programme style, with strong use of primary colours and plenty of text packed into the features. There are programmes, particularly in the top two divisions, which are almost uncriticisable, and this is one of them. Superb!” Programme Monthly & Football Collectible, February 2000.
In the few years that I was designing a variety of items (including the Club crest - see Logo Design) for Everton FC, they won their last piece of silverware. My time with Tranmere Rovers FC coincided with the most successful period in the Club's history, culminating in an appearance in a major Cup Final. And in the one season that I designed the programme for the old Chester City FC, they won the league. Coincidence? You may think that, but I couldn't possibly comment!
Football Information Services
Before statistical organisations like OPTA arrived on the scene, there was one small Hoylake-based company who provided football statistics to nearly every matchday programme as well as hundreds of newspapers throughout the nation. Starting as a one-man band producing basic bar graphs, after ten years it had become an organisation which generated hundreds of thousands in sponsorship revenue, and was the go-to place for football statistics.
Over a ten year period from the mid-1990s, my involvement - besides producing sponsorship documents and proposals for clubs and media organisations - was to re-design the pages each season for both programmes and newspapers. Each club would get a Divisional Statistics page, and a Head-to-Head page of stats against that week's opponent, while newspapers would receive a 'match preview' panel before the weekend, and a 'divisional round-up' panel after the games. Eventually, FIS created a website - www.soccer-stats.com - where fans could go on and compare their club's stats against every other English Club.
Below are just a few example pages, including a series of icons which were designed as part of one season's package, and went on to be seen nationwide.
