The “Spirit of the Eighties” Matchday Programme
With the fallout from Covid still with us in 2021, and its continued impact on matches and society uncertain, David Hunter, Dawson Simpson and Cameron Moore produced a double-sided A4 black and white news sheet for every home game during 2021/22 season.
The project was simple; help the club financially through sales (printing costs were generously covered) and keep the traditional matchday read alive in a modern digital non-tactile age. Thanks to readership support for a content-packed publication the two goals were achieved.
The “Spirit of the Eighties” tag was chosen for a number of reasons, the main one being recognition of the format used by the late Frank Allen in supporting the club with a hand-written version, “The Phoenix”, many decades ago. Sometimes it does no harm to re-visit your roots, recognise what was done and adapt for the future based on what is needed and has been learnt.
For the 2022/23 season the “Spirit of the Eighties”, and the same production team, returned in a new “traditional” matchday programme format.
A short limited run of programmes for selected games between the start of December 2022 and the end of the season began with issue number 1 appearing for the Banbridge Town game on 03rd December.
It’s a traditional A5 format, in full colour, no adverts, just eight pages of football reading, information and photographs with the majority of content not available from the club’s media outlets.
It costs £2 and is available inside the ground as you come through the turnstile. Details of forthcoming issues are announced in advance on the club’s Facebook page.
