Barclays Kicks Off Heroes Campaign
Premier League sponsors Barclays has kicked off its latest campaign celebrating the individuals that have made the league what it is, with a short film starring Arsenal legend Ian Wright.
Ahead of the ‘Spirit of the Game Heroes’ campaign, Barclays asked every Premier League club to nominate one person – whether it be a club legend, community hero or a committed fan – who best represented the passion behind their club, with each of these nominees to be celebrated in their club’s matchday programme and on its perimeter boards during October.
Watch the video at Sport Industry TV
In the first short film of the campaign, former Arsenal and Crystal Palace legend Ian Wright spoke about how his passion for the game drove him to become the player he was.
Wright cites his relationship with his older brother Morris, his time at Turnham Primary School in South London and his unsuccessful trials as a young footballer as reasons that made him even more determined to succeed in the game when he was growing up.
After turning professional with Crystal Palace at 21 and then moving onto Arsenal, Wright reveals how he was driven by the fans and how football brought out the passion that he always had as a young man.
Arsenal’s most famous number 8 said: ‘I think if I had to pin down what really got me going and motivated and my ethic to work hard, I have to say I owe it to Morris. Because he was being a big brother, he inadvertently turned me into a Premier League Footballer.’
Wright also spoke about his special relationship with the fans: ‘It’s all been driven for me by the fans. I wanted to be a hero for them, I wanted to be the person on the pitch that when we were losing they want someone to answer the call, they want someone to score a goal so they can have that euphoric outpouring of emotion, and I always wanted to do it.’
Throughout the rest of the 2014/15 season Barclays will continue to highlight those people, both young and old, who champion the spirit of the game and will be rewarding fans who join the conversation via the Barclays Football Facebook Page or Barclays Footy Twitter Page with exclusive ticket and merchandise giveaways.
The campaign is the next in line for the title sponsor of the league, following the brand’s ‘Thank You’ work – which saw Everton’s Steven Pienaar thank his old coach in South Africa in an emotion video released last week. Watch it here.
