Today was my first day at the Glory and straight away I
realised that Public Relations isn’t strictly what I’ve always expected it to
be from studying it in a textbook. That is, the only way to really learn about
PR is to be a part of it. To be honest, I didn’t do a hell of a lot real work
today, though I’ve got to write a couple of articles tomorrow. Apart from
conducting a couple of interviews, what I did was observe for the most part. I watched
the way the Media Manager interacted with the players, how the Community
Manager interacted with the participant’s parents, etc.
I spent the afternoon at a Glory clinic for junior soccer
players in Sorrento. There were about 50 kids down there and about half as many
Glory staff/players as well as a number of parents and one Community News
photographer. The event was the responsibility of the Community Manager so I
was lucky enough to speak to him as well as a number of the players and get
there thoughts on the importance of events like these. I was surprised to hear
how much the players seemed to enjoy them, I would’ve thought they’d consider
them a bit of a burden.
One thing I realised is I’m going to have to keep myself in
check for a little while, because as I was meeting the players I couldn’t help
but think things like; “Oh crap, that’s Bas van Den Brink.” I’m going to have
to put being a Glory fan on the back foot for now.
