 Meet Rod the Mike
30 January 2010
OUR MATCH DAY ANNOUNCER
ROD ALLSWORTH
Rod celebrated his 3rd anniversary at the club this month. His first game as the man on the mike was for the visit of Frickley back in January 2007. That game finished 2-2 and Danny Hurst made his debut on the same day and his debut was spoilt by being sent off and Pondy replacing him in goal.
HOW DID YOU GET THE JOB?
Chairmen Andy Pilley had advertised for a PA announcer person on the Town website. I contacted Andy expressing interest and we met and I gave him some ideas of what I wanted to do. One was the introduction of our own” celebrating” music when the cods scored. This is how Pugwash came about. Virtually every other club were using Glad all over or Tom Hark. I wanted something original.
WHAT HAD HAPPENED IN THE PAST?
At about 5 minutes to kick off our old secretary Kevin Pennington would climb the stairs of the old stand and read out the teams.
WHAT EXPERIENCE HAD YOU HAD?
I enjoyed 9 years as a DJ with the Mecca organisation.
WHAT WERE YOUR AIMS?
I wanted our match day experience to be informative,creative and supporter friendly-basically the voice of the club to the supporters.
WHAT HAPPENS ON MATCH DAYS?
Background music is played from about an hour pre kick off.
I then meet up with the referee so I can coordinate timings for the music leading up to the players entering the pitch.
I normally then get a visit from Steve Curwood with club news and details of the sponsors, Derick with details of the mascots and finally Steve Edwards with the team sheets. Any fans celebrating a special occasion can drop requests into us at the red portacabin.
We open up with our “Welcome to Highbury” 20 minutes before kick off and the first run through of the teams and general info.
With 8 minutes to go the music volume is cranked up and this season Dance of the Knights, Beautiful Day and as the teams run out Cod Army blasts through the speakers.
Just before kick off I hand over to the Cod Army and the Pugwash CD is loaded in readiness.
At half time the aim is to give out half times from every game being played. If I don’t give out the Stenhousemuir score I’m in bother!!
HOW DO YOU KEEP THINGS FRESH?
We constantly ask how we can do things better?
Three years on I am quite happy with our output. One imminent change is to bring more profile to the match raffle and to draw the winner in the middle of the pitch at halftime. Our new radio mike system allows us to use it in every part of the ground.
AND THE FUTURE
Roll on the new stand and hopefully new facilities for us to make our part of the Highbury match day experience even better!!
I have to say that I get terrific help from Joe Mansell. |
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Fleetwood Town vs Bolton Wanderers XI
Friday 30th July 2010 Kick-off 7.45pm
Jim's Sports Bar open 6pm for all supporters
Adults £7
Concessions £4
Programme £1.50
Codcast Caley Thistle
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