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ATP Events & Experiences has long been a market leader in travel management for a select group of sporting clients including the Football Association and various household names from the premiership. In this issue travelers news talks to ATP’s specialist team about the challenges of arranging team travel for Everton Football Club and takes a look at their journey around Europe in their quest to win the UEAF Cup.
Everton F.C. has been a client since 2004 and ATP
fulfils team travel requirements for domestic fixtures,
international pre-season breaks and European
tours, Champions League and UEFA Cup
competitions.
Football team travel is an incredibly high profile,
specialised area of the travel industry and requires
attention to detail that leaves no margin for error.
Gone are the days when top players could be seen
carrying their own boots into the ground, whilst
exchanging jokes and signing autographs
with fans.
This specialist sector includes transferring the
team, back room staff, security people, baggage
and kit skips from the training ground to the
opposition’s stadium. Along the way you deal with
both UK and foreign security requirements, airports,
aircraft, coach transfers, hotel accommodation and,
of course, the press.
THE PREMIERSHIP
When the Premiership fixture list is released at the
beginning of the season, the first task is to book all
domestic hotels and flights for the whole season,
which has to be done immediately to ensure
availability. The process for choosing hotels is varied
– the team may like a certain chain or a particular
hotel may be considered ‘lucky’ – the team think they will never lose when they stay there!
Charter flights are then organised for, mostly,
fixtures in the south of England. The team travel
by coach or rail for all other fixtures. However,
european travel is more challenging. This can be
because of the location, the language barrier (in
some cases) or just the culture of the country that
a team are visiting.
THE UEFA CUP – TRAVEL CHALLENGES
At the end of the 2006-2007 season, a sixth
place Premiership finish earns Everton FC a place
in the UEFA Cup knock-out stages. ATP
accompanies Everton’s Chief Executive Keith
Wyness to the UEFA Cup draw.
The draw takes place at the Grimaldi Forum in
Monaco and ATP gets the opportunity to meet
with representatives from other teams and their
respective travel partners to exchange
information.
Everton are drawn against Metallist Kharkiv and
we immediately work on the logistics for a tour
proposal which includes air charter management,
hotel selection, transportation, kit inventory
management, special team dietary requirements,
storage, meeting rooms and training facilities.
Later an inspection visit is arranged to the
destination city for key personnel from Everton FC,
the FA and the Merseyside Police. This visit
ensures that the many components meet the required standard; these elements include hotel
accommodation, dietary requirements,
banqueting, physiotherapy, security, training
facilities and local logistics including road
networks.
ATP also attends the operational meeting at the
opposing teams’ stadium together with Everton
personnel, FA officials and the police. On our
return, ATP planned a tour proposal for the team,
which was then approved by the team manager.
EVERTON IN EUROPE
First Round 2nd Leg Knock Out - Game 1
Metallist Kharkiv. Ukraine Kharkiv is a host city for
the European Championships in 2012 and has
emerged from behind the Iron Curtain. A city of
fabulous architecture, including an amazing
Gothic Airport Terminal, the city unfortunately
didn’t offer a great choice of hotels that met with
the required brief. Luckily the Cosmopolit, the
Chichikov and the Aurora all managed to happily
accommodate the team and the officials.
It was a pleasure to work with the people of
Kharkiv and they certainly are a credit to the new
Ukraine with their happy nature and positive
outlook.
Following the 1-1 draw at home, Everton needed
an away goal to go through to the Group stages and luckily they didn’t disappoint with a 3-2 win.
GROUP STAGES -
GAME 3 FCN NURNBERG, GERMANY
The medieval city of Nuremberg was also holding
two major conferences whilst the match was being
played, so hotel space was at a premium. Because
of this the Le Meridien Grand in the city centre was
chosen, so on the night of the match the city was
alive with Everton fans singing and chanting and it
was a challenge to get the team from the stadium
back into the hotel after their fabulous win of 2-0!
GAME 5 – AZ ALKMAAR, THE NETHERLANDS
The famous cheese making town of Alkmaar is
just 30 minutes drive from the centre of Amsterdam.
The team were accommodated at the Hilton
Amsterdam on the outskirts of the city where we
experienced the coldest temperatures to date; with
Everton training in the snow whilst the famous
canals began to freeze over. Everton went on to
break AZ Alkmaar’s 20 year unbeaten home record
in minus 11 degrees temperature, winning 3-2 on
the night. After this victory, Everton top the group with
a club record of five consecutive European victories.
KNOCK OUT STAGES -
ROUND OF 32 – SK BRANN, NORWAY
On arrival in the old fishing town of Bergen we
discovered the city is famous for its rainfall and
it was certainly the wettest destination we
encountered on our travels! The Clarion Airport hotel
was chosen for the team, whilst the Clarion
Havnekontoret in Bergen centre was reserved for
the remainder of the group.
Everton win 2-0. SK Brann travel to Goodison the
following week, only to be beaten 6-1 and Everton
go through to Round of 16.
ROUND OF 16 – ACF FIORENTINA, ITALY
Florence, famous as the world centre of
Renaissance art, was the most difficult of the tours to
organise, due to major restrictions on the size of
aircraft allowed to land at Florence airport. For the
first time the group was split, with the team flying
into Florence and the officials and press flying into
Pisa. The team stay in the beautiful Excelsior Hotel
which is on the banks of the Arno River. Everton lose
2-0 to Fiorentina, but fight back heroically to level the
score at Goodison, only losing out on penalties
bringing an end to their UEFA Cup dream.
It has been a long and complicated process for
the team at ATP but an exciting challenge and the
whole tournament has certainly swept the staff
along in a frenzy of support for Everton, even those
who do not care for the beautiful game!
Events & Experiences are happy to
assist with your next challenging
event. Whether you’ve got through
to the first round of the UEFA Cup or
if you are planning a conference or
a team building event we can help. Call us on 0870 990 6023 or email events@atpi.com
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