Birmingham City Football Club
The Birmingham County FA Grassroots Football Awards is a night full of celebration, inspiration and recognition for its community members. The main purpose of the event is to celebrate and recognise the work that the volunteer workforce does within grassroots/community football by providing attendees with a night to reflect on all the hard work that has been put in throughout the year.
We were asked by Birmingham County Football Association to help with the organisation of their annual grassroots football awards. The brief was simple – bigger and better than last year!
With only a small budget set, we had the tricky job of delivering a rewarding evening that had a luxury/grand feel but also being cost effective.
When tasked with finding a venue in the Midlands area that ties nicely to the football theme, our event managers carried out an extensive search to identify a location that would be perfect for not only for the event logistics of the night but for the overall event objectives; rewarding those in the football community.
We understood that the right venue would set the tone for the entire event, which is why it is one of the most crucial aspect of our planning process.
After thorough research, we decided upon Birmingham City Football Club, because nowhere says BCFA like it! Its history and connection to the Birmingham County Football Association made it the perfect choice.
While the venue itself was a perfect location, the addition of a red carpet at the entrance gave attendees that VIP feel and the use of blue and gold to brand the room connected everything back to the client; BCFA.
The event consisted of a drinks reception, allowing attendees to networking, followed by a two-course dinner.
We supplied ambient lighting to create the perfect mood for the awards, and provided an AV Technician to manage the technical production for the main awards presentation and the plasma screens situated around the room.
The evening was hosted by BBC’s Jenny Wilkes and had guest ex pro footballers in attendance; Terry Angus, Jason Lee, Michael Johnson, Stuart Atwell, John Richards, John Gayle, Steve Antrobus and David Busst.
The event was a huge success and we received great feedback and the following comments from the team at Birmingham County FA. Blackberry were subsequently appointed to manage the 2019, 2020 and 2022 Grassroots awards and the Referees Awards.
From the first meeting with Blackberry it was clear that they were the right fit to support our event. With a short brief to make it bigger and better than last year they have surpassed all of our expectations. The service received from the whole team has been first class, really getting in to the detail of what we wanted to achieve and bringing it to life superbly! Without their support & guidance we would not have been able to stage such a great awards evening rewarding so many of our volunteer workforce – thank you.
Richard Lindsay, Business Planning Manager,
Birmingham County Football Association
