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A kick up the ASA 11:26 - Jul 29 with 2590 views

Fans of crisis club bury were left reeling today following a probe from The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).

The ASA are a Government-funded, London-based outfit who are the UK’s independent regulator of advertising across all media. They apply the Advertising Codes, which are written by the Committees of Advertising Practice. Their work includes acting on complaints and proactively checking the media to take action against misleading advertisements.

EGP were fortunate to obtain secret documents appertaining to this case which arose following a radio advertisement placed by the club who were recently bought by a 31-year-old philanthropic, millionaire property developer, who claimed he bought the club, “for the love of football.”

Since then, the young Chairman has remortgaged Gigg Lane (the club’s dilapidated ground), has put a charge on the ground so that he is the first to get his money back should it all go tits up, has raided Batley’s Ikea for some new furniture for the Gigg Lane reception area, and has put pictures of real footballers on the walls of some grotty corridor within their “Main Stand”. This is actually true, and there was a lot of angst mongst the regulars, until Navy Boy turned up with the most implausible excuse for this imaginable!

Writing on the Big bury board he said, “Having just got off the phone with both chairman and CEO, I can put everyone's mind at ease. The pictures down the main corridor were obtained for the frames - not the contents. This area of the club has not been finished yet, the carpet only went down this afternoon.

“The 'FRAMES' were put in place as a 'sizing excercise' - some have been moved and shifted many times - in order to set the correct position for each 'FRAME'. Now that the chairman and CEO are happy with their positions, they will be changed. Photo's will be replaced with images of former players.

“The Chairman went to some pain to explain that no offence was made in this, it was never the intention to take away the identity of the club and the photos that are currently there - will be replaced before the first game of the season next weekend...”

Immediately, the regulars swallowed this hook, line and sinker.

(Editor’s note — this is worth an investigation in itself, but the bastards are writing it quicker than we can investigate it!)

More bastards

Back to topic, in a bid to put bums on seats, the new bury regime decided to place an advertisement on a radio station no-one has heard of. As soon as it was aired, the only listener, Marg Gaunt from Heywood, fired across an angry email to the top brass at the ASA.

The strongly worded, pro-active email read: ‘Never in all my life have I heard such nonsense. I was listening to Real Radio XS and all this stuff was being spread about the French Revolution, before it went onto say the next revolution is to happen in Bury. Do these advertising boffins not understand the bloodshed caused by revolutions? We do not want blood spilt on the streets of Bury because some tinpot little football club is getting too big for its boots. I will also take issue with their claim that the atmosphere at Gigg Lane is special. It isn’t. It’s awful. This is misleading to say the least and I think you should investigate. Here is a link to this nonsense.’

http://www.themightyshakers.co.uk/Revolution.mp3

The ASA sent its Director of Complaints and Investigations, Mike Lockwood, to investigate. Ironically, his younger brother, Adam, plays for the club, but as lads, they never got on, so Mike seized the chance to put one over the little shit.

A few days following this investigation, EGP caught up with Mike in the Pack Horse in Birtle. The rustic country pub was an ideal venue for a quiet chat and he went onto reveal the severity of his findings.

On season ticket advertising, he told us that it was illegal to advertise them given that fellow member clubs are boycotting games. Not only that, teams are even refusing to play friendlies there such is the state of the stadium. Furthermore, it is highly improbable that the club will survive until May and to sell tickets for events which the vendor knows will never take place is illegal.

We asked Mike who he thought was behind all these goings on and he said, “In my opinion, there are organised criminals behind this. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve got people behind the scenes who have asset stripped other football clubs in the past. There is no way on this planet that anyone (however young) could seriously believe they can make a profit out of running a small, badly supported club. Only last week, they had less than 1000 home supporters for their opening friendly home fixture — an attractive game versus Blackpool as well. And they couldn’t even fix up a friendly on the final Saturday before the big kick off as no-one wants to go to Gigg Lane. My guess is they will spend the mortgage money on getting through to Christmas and then crash, bang, wallop.”

The Rooney comment drew specific criticism from Lockwood. He explained, “You can’t brand a human name to expect it to deliver to certain standards. For example, you can brand a manufactured name because it is engineered to standards, so if something is the Rolls Royce of its field, it’s going to be good. But this! It would have been like Wigan advertising season tickets by saying “We’ve got a Jesus” when they signed the 3 Amigos in the 1990s”.

This was a reference to Jesus Seba, Roberto Martinez and Isidro Diaz.

“Like I said, you cannot brand a name in a blatant attempt to mislead people that certain names come with a guarantee of success.”

We pressed Mike on the atmosphere claim and he told us, “When I sat down in the Boardroom with some bloke called Neville Neville I thought I was hearing double. I ran him through my findings and, I must admit, there was an atmosphere. In fact, I even had to open a window.”

So, where now for Mike and his investigative team? He said, “We’ve banned the advert and have issued the club with strict guidelines for what they can and cannot do. I’ve noticed a lot of fly-posting in the town — at traffic lights and on roundabouts, which is illegal, so I’ve reported them to Bury MBC.

“The councillor I spoke to was called Norman Normal and he was very upset, saying the club is the bane of the town. I didn’t realise the council had actually sponsored them until pulling out only two weeks ago. The club are now on a 12 month ASA suspended sentence, so if they do this again, they will be fined heavily.”

Meanwhile, EGP sought reaction to all this on the Big bury board. We expected supporters to be rolling their eyes looking up to the heavens in despair.

However, surprisingly, the mood was most upbeat! One wrote, ‘Blimey we are moving with the times!!! Not a bad advert’

Another chipped in with ‘Great to see or hear should I say.’

Whilst another, not wanting to be outdone, wrote, ‘Well done to whoever made this! Viva la revolution!’

Indeed, such was the mood amongst the faithful, one wrote, ‘Exactly what we need, gets the point across! If we could get it on Talksport then we would be hitting our perfect target audience!’

And it was a big thumbs-up from another regular who wrote, ‘Well done whoever put this together. Good marketing.’

Millionaire Chairman, Stewart Day, was unavailable for comment as he’d gone away because it was Huddersfield Wakes week. He was said to be in his parents’ holiday home in Filey, as they hoped to tie the week in, with visiting other relatives.

Family holiday home

21m 35s

Don’t have Nightmares. We’ll be back when the mongs write another one for us.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ingythewingy/3839353476/in/set-72157622184749477/li

bury writers on tour

[Post edited 1 Jan 1970 1:00]

They write themselves!

A kick up the ASA on 11:35 - Jul 29 with 2563 views

Daley_Lama

Writing on the Big bury board he said, “Having just got off the phone with both chairman and CEO, I can put everyone's mind at ease. The pictures down the main corridor were obtained for the frames - not the contents. This area of the club has not been finished yet, the carpet only went down this afternoon.

“The 'FRAMES' were put in place as a 'sizing excercise' - some have been moved and shifted many times - in order to set the correct position for each 'FRAME'. Now that the chairman and CEO are happy with their positions, they will be changed. Photo's will be replaced with images of former players.

“The Chairman went to some pain to explain that no offence was made in this, it was never the intention to take away the identity of the club and the photos that are currently there - will be replaced before the first game of the season next weekend...”

That is absolutely priceless.

As is the above post, brilliant investigative journalism worthy of The Paul Foot Award.

Poll:

DF in or out

A kick up the ASA on 11:50 - Jul 29 with 2517 views

D_Alien

A kick up the ASA on 11:35 - Jul 29 by Daley_Lama

Perhaps the award could be renamed, in due deference to EGP, as The Club Foot Award

Poll:

What are you planning to do v Newport

A kick up the ASA on 11:51 - Jul 29 with 2517 views

TVOS1907

A kick up the ASA on 11:35 - Jul 29 by Daley_Lama

And even funnier is how most of them have swallowed it.

Again.

When I was your age, I used to enjoy the odd game of tennis. Or was it golf?

A kick up the ASA on 12:03 - Jul 29 with 2479 views

Daley_Lama

I don't know why in such situations they simply don't say "fair enough, bit of an own goal there, we'll change them to Bury players" rather than spin bull.

Poll:

DF in or out

A kick up the ASA on 12:04 - Jul 29 with 2474 views

BartRowou

Poll:

Should Bury shop elsewhere for frames?

A kick up the ASA on 12:13 - Jul 29 with 2450 views

TVOS1907

A kick up the ASA on 12:03 - Jul 29 by Daley_Lama
I don't know why in such situations they simply don't say "fair enough, bit of an own goal there, we'll change them to Bury players" rather than spin bull.

Shall I answer that for you, DL?

When I was your age, I used to enjoy the odd game of tennis. Or was it golf?

A kick up the ASA on 12:13 - Jul 29 with 2450 views

TVOS1907

A kick up the ASA on 12:03 - Jul 29 by Daley_Lama
I don't know why in such situations they simply don't say "fair enough, bit of an own goal there, we'll change them to Bury players" rather than spin bull.

Double post.

[Post edited 1 Jan 1970 1:00]

When I was your age, I used to enjoy the odd game of tennis. Or was it golf?

A kick up the ASA on 12:53 - Jul 29 with 2365 views

off2div1

We signed Jesus a few years ago but got rid when he couldn't perform miracles