East Wing Don wrote:
Alby39 wrote:
Look at what Bristol City have done when Hummel have let then down... Even Forest Green Rovers gave them the boot when they had issues mid season.
The fact we're giving Castore another year after this shit show shows the lack of discipline we have as a club.
Are we giving them another year or did we sign a 2+ year contract?
If so, we'd need to break that, which would then probably mean paying it off, therefore we'd have double the expense next season (Castore + new supplier).
While Castore have not been great, we are mainly to blame too and I'm not sure it would be the right thing to do to break contract, from a publicity perspective (other suppliers would be put off) but also because it wouldn't be fair, as we should be taking more of the blame here.
We signed off the kit design, so Castore can't really take the flack for this. We would have agreed to the pricing of the shirts. Stock wise, every company has struggled with this and unfortunately for us, a number of bigger clubs signed with Castore at the same time, so we were down the pecking order.
We should never have let them run the shop, we tried that with Nike and it doesn't work. But once again, that is on us and not Castore.
I could forgive them for a few months of awkwardness, not nearly 9 months of it. To say the club shop running is our fault, how do you know? How do you onowbit wasn't a part of the agreement?
From what Winkelman said at the start of the season, it's my understanding he stayed away from big/major brands because we were let down with Nike between 2007/2010 because of catalogue kits and them running the club shop. If we're letting them run it, I agree it's silly to make the same mistake but why would we willingly just make the mistake again?
He also said we were one of the first to sign the contract with them ahead of Salford, Charlton, Rangers etc, before a host of European clubs.. from what I can see online the bigger clubs seem to have their house in order with them - us and Salford don't. Now you might suggest that the smaller clubs will wait longer, what do you expect? Why? Why should we? You make deals, you expect to get results. If we're making little to no money from the club shop because nothing is available from the supplier that isn't on us, that's on them.
If you go into Tesco and moan at the bloke filling the fruit and veg that there are no tomatoes or cucumbers, that's not on the worker its on the supplier. We were lead to believe they were slacking due to the women's Euros - that was 8/9 months ago. Why can't I get a castore MK Dons hoodie but players, staff and a select few fans I've seen get one? Why have there been no statements and communication in apology from Castore?
Who gives a shit about publicity? And I'm sure othwr suppliers really wouldn't be too arsed if the reasons were backed up, especially if it was their chance to show Castore how to really run things and that their supply chain was better organised for this club.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.footyh ... 827678073/