As a Norwich City fan, I was interested to hear that our new kit for the upcoming 2012-2013 season was going to be showcased this week. This along with an extended sponsorship deal with insurance giants Aviva (formerly Norwich Union), should have been a very positive step from the club.
However after watching the relatively uninspiring video, which considering last years excellent one was poor in comparison (despite a nice little section with Stephen Fry), I then found that the same problem which occurred last season, had been repeated again this year - in that apparently fans of my body size aren't welcome to buy the clubs replica kits...
Firstly let me say that I am tall, I am broad, and I am definitely overweight. I make no bones or excuses about this, some people choose to drink, others to smoke or take drugs, whereas instead I simply like to lead a sedentary lifestyle and eat well whilst doing so.
I don't go binge drinking and starting fights on a Friday night, nor do I encourage the illicit drugs trade and steal to keep up a habit, yet in some ways it feels like I get more persecution for my lifestyle choice than either of the above examples.
In response to complaints I've made about being unable to get a football shirt in my size on the regular Norwich City forums, instead of support I've instead received a barrage of abuse about losing weight and offensive terms relating to this. Seriously are people that offended by 'larger' fans that we're treated almost like lepers?
It's not just people who are overweight like I am though, as there are those who are of generally bigger builds, particularly people who work out a lot with weights or take part in some of the more physical sports like boxing or rugby that have this problem. We just can't get the sizes we need to fit our bodies, and whilst I can take a bit of stick about “who ate all the pies”, how about you give the 6ft tall, heavily muscled MMA fighter behind me that hassle instead? No? Thought not...
With obesity being a growing problem not just in the US, but very much in the UK as well, I'd have thought that simple economics would come into play here, in that supply is highly related to demand, and if there's more people needing bigger shirts, then surely more clubs should be able to supply them?
Instead of taking advantage of this area of the market, the message we're actually getting is “tough shit”.
How can some highly intelligent, highly skilled marketing and economic experts who work for the clubs get this so badly wrong? I don't expect the club to order in 10,000 shirts each of size 6, 7 or 8XL, but what the hell is wrong with actually assessing potential demand of these larger sizes with the fans and then simply ordering a small amount of each in based upon this feedback?
We know that this would likely come at an extra cost (both due to needing more material and with having lower order numbers per batch), but in most cases we'd be happy to pay a bit more to be able to wear our clubs shirt with pride whilst helping them financially in the process.
When I first raised the issue 2 years ago, you could go online and buy Chelsea shirts up to size 8XL without a problem, so why could they cater for the larger fan and not us?
I'm sure that we've all also seen the large, bald Newcastle fan who seems to attend every game without his top on – maybe in reality it's because they don't offer a shirt that fits...
This really shouldn't be about whether or not you agree with people being overweight, heavily muscled or simply having an unusual build, but about all fans being given the same chance to support their team, and instead of this the message appears to have become “Fatties and Fighters not welcome”...
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