A few months ago I decided I wanted to get tshirts made up for the three of us to wear to the netball WCs. Then I thought it'd be a good idea to see if fellow netball freaks from the netball forum I belong to (www.netballonline.info) would also like a tshirt. Then I thought maybe I'd take a few extras over to sell to people who saw the tshirts and liked them. Aussie Diamonds merchandise is pretty scarce and hard to get hold of, and the tshirt options are mainly replica training shirts. I wanted something with a witty slogan, and of course it had to be canary yellow (canary yellow?! That's Australian Gold my friend, and don't you ****ing forget it!)
I asked people on the forum for ideas and eventually settled on 'Aussie Diamonds Bling It On!' (thanks Liveste!) with a picture of a diamond inside the shape of the superman logo. On the back it says 'Shazza, wish u were here!' in honour of Sharelle McMahon, aussie captain who busted her achilles a couple of months before the WCs and is missing out on playing.
Losing her would have been similar to losing Steve Waugh for the Ashes or cricket world cup at the height of his powers. Shazza is one of a kind, in my opinion the best to have ever played the game. She'll be over in Singa doing some commentary so there will be ample opportunity to stalk her. As an extra, I have made 50 life-sized Shazza face masks to hand out in the crowd. Freak, I know. I told you I was obsessive about netball!
In the rush of the final weeks before we left I had 30 orders of tshirts from forumers and ordered an extra 17 to sell over here. One Sportswear in Canberra made them up and they turned out great (thanks Darryn!) It took a couple of weeks for the order to come in, so cutting it fine, but I managed to post a few shirts to people before they left for Singa, and the rest I have lugged over with me in my luggage.
When the order came in, I spread the tshirts out and took a couple of photos and posted it on Twitter so that the @AussieDiamonds could see. They loved it, re-tweeted it, and with a bit of encouragement from fellow forum freak Lurch, within a day or so people were hash-tagging #blingiton. Norma Plummer, Diamonds coach re-tweeted pictures of my tshirt too. Loving it!
It's amazing the buzz you can create from a slogan, a few tshirts and a bit of savvy use of social networking. The Aussie Diamonds also posted it on their Facebook page and soon people were emailing me from all over the country asking to buy the spare tshirts. Love it when a plan comes together!
So, finally I've arrived at the stadium to hand these shirts out. But not before going through a sh*tfight just to get my tickets from the travel agent who was supposed to be at a particular hotel the day before to hand them out, and wasn't. So I have to wait 20 minutes for stadium security to go and find him in the crowd so I can get my precious tickets. With that finally sorted out, I text the forumers and they start arriving to collect the tshirts. Some of them I've met previously, some I haven't. Great to see them all, and they're loving the tshirts.
While I've got the tshirts out and handing them over to forumers, people walking past start milling around asking if they can buy them. Within 10 minutes I'm mobbed by aussie supporters crowding around waiting for me to hand out the pre-ordered shirts so that I can sell the 17 spares. It takes me ages to get it sorted out to make sure I'm not missing anyone's pre-ordered shirt, and while I'm madly trying to do that, stadium security comes over.
'Are you selling tshirts?' he asks (insert asian accent)
'No... these are pre-ordered in Australia... ' I say, putting on my most innocent face.
'So why is there cash transactions?'
'Oh... uh... just because people are picking them up now...' I revert to www.dumbtraveller.gov.au face.
This seems to work, cos he asks me to move my gear and assembled crowd to behind a curtained-off area to finish what I'm doing. By now there are a good 10 people lined up, anxious to get their hands on a tshirt, and I know I've only got a couple yet and am frantically sorting out the sizes. Finally the last three tshirts are sold and 9 unhappy customers leave empty-handed. I give them a consolation Shazza face mask and tell them I'll do another order when I get home to Oz. I should have ordered 300 tshirts and sold them for a profit! (I only sold them for cost price, the motivation was just to get them amongst the crowd)
After I've finished packing up the security guard comes over and explains that you can't sell tshirts here because it is considered 'hawking' and is illegal because there is official merchandise for sale. Pity the official merchandise is so sh*thouse!
I give him a long-winded story about how I'm travelling in a group (true) and the tshirts were for the group (partially true - you could classify the 2000+ aussie supporters who have travelled over here for the WCs as a group)... he politely wishes me good day, and I slink off, relieved that
(a) I haven't been escorted from the stadium and arrested, and
(b) I have offloaded most of the tshirts (still a couple more forumers to find tomorrow), and
(c) I can finally sit down and watch some netball.
Bling it on!
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