Truly strange story: Claddagh: Ruining a Good Thing Plans the Sunday US viewing party for 1000.. gets 3000!!! Regional management chews him out in public. Craig leaves, staff walk out with him. Everything is unsettled at the moment, but it looks like corporate is gonna get things settled down more to their liking. Meaning fighting for custom with about 50 other bars in the district. Way behind whoever hires Craig. The most impressive customer service I have EVER seen at a bar. Not just for games, ANYTIME. I AM NOT a pub guy but I've gone there to watch three games.
truly strange and excessively stupid. You can't create that sort of customer relations overnight, and you can't execute it from the corporate level. It all comes from one guy sensing what's on the ground and figuring a way to make it work. I was especially struck by Craig's offer -- on the first meeting with the writer -- to call him and give him the final score of a match he had to leave. People like that are too valuable to treat in that manner. I hope somebody in Columbus has the sense to hire him and his staff. I'm sorry you lost your footy bar, Pettyfog. Let us know how this turns out -- especially if it turns out to the good.
1 Footypub drama Followup, here Excerpt: The tone of the story is that Craig being so proactive was indeed running the place as if it were his own, shunning corporate guidelines. Now, anyone who thinks about it can see the downside of doing that. The more successful that location is, the more pressure on mid-management to explain why the other locations lag. And the more enmity built against him by the other GM's in this case the guy at the Polaris {north outer belt shopping district} location. All the Crew fans are adament they are going in to get their donated shiorts and scarves back, and I dont doubt it. It will also be interesting to see if the Crew adjusts to this. The game announcers promo Claddagh Downtown as 'The Official Away Game HQ' and I suppose that is by contract. But there wont be many Crew Fans there OR Crew Memorabilia either. Craig's main manager was apparently snapped up by Fado the minute he inquired. But there's no way I'm going to go to Fado even though it takes about the same amount of time from my driveway. It's in Easton, one of those trendy upscale 'Shopping Villages' on the east outerbelt. Claddagh is located on the southern fringe of the downtown bar district and there's many north of it, mainly clustered around Nationwide Arena and Fifth Third Field, Hockey and Baseball venues.
Chris Deville in 'Columbus Alive' does a good piece on the followup and what it means to soccer and Crew supporters. They moved down the street, but Crew is contracted to keep promoting Claddagh for the season. It wont work and we have to assume that relationship is over from now on.. what good to advert "Crew Away Game HQ" if the diehard crew fans boycott? Sad part is Craig McConville is moving back to Pittsburgh. The implication being there indeed IS another side to the story. Perhaps Craig should have ridden the high side on it, and acted like 'upper management' in PRIVATE while chewing out the corporate brass later instead of walking out. It really would have made no difference to his CV or references.. but walking out mid-crisis certainly did.
