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The 2nd NVFC Beer Festival
After the success of the first NVFC beer Festival it was decided in December 2009 that we needed to organise another Beer Festival to see if we could increase the amount of money raised for the Football Club from the first one.
We decided to look at putting the date for the festival in June again but avoiding the Midnight Walk date so we chose the 12th of June, unaware that this date would allow us to have a 90 minute comedy show as our entertainment, as I had made enquiries about entertainment being provided by an acoustic duo I had seen perform at the Kelsall Beer Festival. The date was agreed with Jim for the Beer Festival to take place in the bottom bar as per the previous one.
It was also decided that we would look at increasing the amount of tickets to go on sale from last year, provide more beers and that the glass would be done by a company so as not to stress Tony out doing the water transfer to all the glasses.
So the work began in January 2010 for our chief ticket designer Tony to come up with a new ticket design and by this time we were blessed as we thought with free entertainment of the first England game V USA at the World Cup in South Africa, that saved us money we would have spent for the acoustic duo, thus more money for the club. The next bit of good news was that we were able to get the beer glasses sponsored with this being done very kindly by the NVFC Trust. The Supporters Club agreed to do a joint sponsorship with the NVFC trust for a barrel of beer and the Mini Bus which was appreciated by us.
The next things we needed to sort out was the sponsors for the beer and ticket sales, ticket sales began at every home game with volunteers manning a table in the sports bar to help move ticket sales along (cheers Sully). I also extended the invitation to the beer festival to a chap called "Sheepdipblade" on the forum as he had wanted to attend the previous festival but due to time constraints could not make it.
Requests were made to various people to sponsor a barrel of beer and a list began taking shape of willing supporters for this quest, with a couple of last minute changes we had all of the beers & ciders sponsored (thanks from us all to our sponsors yet again) An advert was placed in the Out Inn Cheshire CAMRA magazine to try and entice other beer fans to the event.
I wanted to have all tickets to the event sold out by the last home game of the season and this was achieved. We ended up with 15 of the tickets being sold to our Sheffield United fans and they began making plans to head on over for the event.
We held a meeting with Mike Elliott who was to set up the bar again and was to be our beer manager and supplier, twelve beers and two ciders were ordered with Mike and two barrels of beer secured for the event via the Marston's rep Josie. The list of beers and ciders chosen ranged from the 3.4% Brakspear Bitter to the 7.5% Broadoak Moonshine cider, which was described by Mike Elliott as a clear cider with a kick like a mule !!
Time seemed to fly from the end of the football season to the week of the beer festival and before we knew it the beer festival was upon us. After a fair bit of work by Tony the programme was sorted and was with the printer to produce for us, not before poor old Tony had had a few sleepless nights sorting out a couple of beer changes.
All things re the raffle had finally fallen into position with prizes ranging from A Sheffield Utd Gnome to a limited print of the Vics FA Trophy Winners which was kindly sponsored by the Supporters Club. The running of the raffle on the night was given to Tony (our chief raffle ticket agent) as Bruce was not sure on the que at the bar the previous year which seemed to be caused by a certain barman offering the try before you buy approach to everyone he served.
Paul Stockton had very kindly travelled to collect the beer glasses for the Festival and these were then delivered to me to store ready for the festival at the weekend. I forgot how many boxes I was going to have to keep taking up space at home (sorry Kaz).
The bar and beer were put into place by Mike Elliott on the Thursday, with us having a slightly bigger bar than the year before to accommodate the extra beer. An extra small bar was set up for Phil from the Brew 2 Bottle stall at the Northwich Market where he was to offer samples of home brew and advice to anyone who fancied brewing beer at home.
The day of the Beer Festival was upon us and I must admit that I was feeling very happy that with the festival being sold out, all beer & cider sponsored that we were going to be in for a good chance of raising more money than the previous event for the club. So off to the club I went, remembering to take the glasses ! giving myself a few hours to iron out any slight hic ups that may crop up. All of the committee were now at the ground getting the raffle prizes sorted out on display, the glasses and beer tokens were ready on the front door with Phil's wife Linda who was yet again assisting with the signing in on the front door & beer ticket sales.
The mini bus service was to run again with Paul Stockton behind the wheel of the bus service which was jointly sponsored by the Trust & Supporters Club, we seemed to open the doors to the event a bit earlier than it showed on the tickets as plenty of people seemed to arrive early and with the first bus following the timetable to the minute it arrived with a full load of beer hungry fans.
Soon the place was full of people both young and old(er) enjoying our range of beers, nearly all the Sheffield Utd fans turned up and enjoyed a guided tour of the ground by Joe stopping to have pictures taken sat in the home dugout area. Then it was down to business and making the club some money with beer sales.
The England game kicked off, an early goal was scored the USA then got the rub of the "Green" so to speak and equalised and before I knew it the game was over. I never saw more than 5 mins of the game as we were kept busy pulling the beer for everyone, there was a steady flow of happy beer drinkers but upset football fans trying the beers on offer. With the two ciders quickly running out, first the Moonshine then the Ceddar Valley 6%, our female attendees seemed to take a bit of a shine to the ciders. Of the beers the Blue Monkey Evolution 4.3%, George Wright Corner Kick 4.7%, Titanic Stout 4.5%, Tower Sundowner 4% & Oakham Citra 4.2% were proving to be to the liking of the beer drinkers.
The other beers on offer included the Rudgate Ruby Mild 4.4% which was the Champion Beer of Britain 2009, Jennings Bitter 3.5%, Burton Bridge Golden Delicious 3.8%, Kinver Light Railway 3.8%, Slaters Top Totty 4%, TSA Sporran Warmer Blonde 4%, Storm Bosley Cloud 4.1% and Lymestone Ein Stein 5%.
All of the beers and ciders were in tip top form and Mike had done us proud again with the bar set up, I never heard one person make a bad remark re any of the drinks on offer, the only comment I got was re the Moonshine running out and I dare not print what was said re that !!
After the game a few fans started to drift away having had their fill of the beers on offer, our friends from Sheffield just kept coming back for more (hollow legs me thinks !). After 11pm the event began to wind down and the beer drinking was finally brought to an end just before 12pm. I managed to hop on board the final bus trip with a few of my fellow committee members joining me, we all agreed the evening had been a success and that we should have raised more money than the previous year.
We would like to thank all of our sponsors Mike Elliott Beer Festival Services, A. J .McCabe Windows & Conservatories, S & F Tile Showroom, The Penny Black, Pete Morgan, Dave McCoy Builders Davenham, NVFC Supporters Trust & Supporters Club (Joint sponsorship for Barrel & Mini Bus transport on the night), D & D Industrial Coatings, G. W. R. Design, Tez & Nicki (Vics fans from Cambridge), DBD Nuclear Ltd, Michael Cooper (Plumber from Leftwich), PANAD, The Magazine Man (magazine distribution company), Capper Industrial Contractors Ltd. Maggie Nixon (NVFC lifelong fan).
Although not all the 275 people who purchased a ticket attended the event, there were well over 3/4 in attendance. All of the beers were well received by all at the event with the two Cider barrels being emptied well before 10pm. The fans from Sheffield had a great time even winning back their own donated raffle prize of the Sheffield United gnome.
On behalf of the Beer Festival committee we would like to thank all of our barrel sponsors and those who provided raffle prizes for us.
The sum of money raised for the club was £2700 as well as us being able to sponsor two players shirts for the 2010/11 season.
The question now is, will there be a third NVFC Beer Festival in 2011, who knows.
Cheers
Andrew Perry, Alex Dickinson, Phil Bradley, Tony Rogers & Bruce Notman.
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