THE BUCS UK ANNUAL REPORT JANUARY 2010 Time for a review on what the Bucs UK has achieved in 2009 and what we have planned for the year ahead for members of the club. Wembley 2009 – Tampa Bay Buccaneers v New England Patriots Of course the main event of the club was the regular season game at Wembley. The game itself was a 35-7 defeat for the Pewter Pirates but that was almost incidental to the events of the weekend. The club was able via NFL UK, to obtain over 300 tickets for club members with some in the Upper Deck, and the remainder in magnificent seats right behind the Buccaneer bench. The Bucs UK took on the UK Patriots in a touch football event that saw us win both games and have the event featured in newspapers around the world as the Bucs sent along cheerleaders, Mike Alstott, Lee Roy Selmon and Shelton Quarles along with many front office personnel. Anyone who was there that day will never forget the experiences. The club meal had TJ Rives as a guest speaker and NFL Films did all their interviews for the Bucs UK documentary and a follow-up event at the NFL Tailgate before the game saw many club members get together too. In short it was a superb 25th anniversary event for the Bucs UK and one that saw the club firmly at the forefront of any NFL supporters event on this side of the Atlantic. Our relationship with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ front office Each year I write that it is better than ever, but 2009 truly took the club’s affiliation to a new level. Brian Ford is the Buccaneers’ Executive Director of Business Administration and the Glazers’ right-hand man. And he has been more supportive of the Bucs UK than anyone could have imagined as the likes of Phil Jones, John Davies, David Cambridge and others will testify. The 2009 team media guide even makes reference to the Bucs UK on the acknowledgements page at the front. My trip in November served to reinforce all the friendships and links on the other side of the Atlantic and saw Phil and I invited to the 30th anniversary event at One Buc Place that was only otherwise open to the players and their wives. The following day Trevor Finch joined us on the Pirate Ship for the Green Bay game, probably the only place in Raymond James Stadium that I had never seen a game from. “You’ve stuck with us for all these years so it’s only right we stick with you” has always been Joel Glazer’s comment and the events of the past 12 months have certainly proven that to be true. Game tickets and competition prizes We were able to offer game tickets for 2009 pre-season and regular season games in the usual way through the Buccaneer front office. We do ask any club member who has had tickets through the Bucs UK, to make some form of contribution to the prize box for our weekly competitions. In the main, these have been over-whelming in terms of shirts, jackets, caps, magazines and all manner of Buccaneer merchandise. In addition, Rick Moore, a colleague in Tampa, has donated some amazing prizes including game-worn playing jerseys and other merchandise. Hence we will be able to run competitions throughout 2010 in the many different formats that we use. Club competitions I have tried to offer a competition every week through the Message Board and each month during the off-season. These range from random prediction events, to true trivia or caption competitions, to give everyone a fair chance. It does surprise me that many people in the club do not take the time to enter some of these competitions though. BUCPOWER.COM As we passed the 3.6 million hit mark, the site continues to grow and expand its horizons. We have almost 6,000 different screens and now over 12,000 picture images and logos on the site, along with nearly 200 video clips. Hence I again increased the server capacity during the year in anticipation of future expansion. Behind the scenes, every screen has been undergoing a renovation. I have done nearly 2,500 of them in the past six months and will continue to update the game pages to incorporate more pictures, secondary stats, game books and video clips where possible. Every game up and including the 1998 season has been completed and the others will be done early in 2010. I do try and take on board all of the ideas and suggestions you have for improving the site, and the recent new ideas such as “Around the Pirate Ship” have proven very popular. The message board We did have some problems with the board early in the year and had to switch to a new server hosted by Clive Williams who along with Kieron Hyams, helped get it up and running as quickly as possible. Club merchandise Phil Jones produced some new club T-shirts during the year for the Wembley game and also has delivered some fantastic new polo shirts for 2010 which I will make available over the next few weeks. I have taken over all the dispatch and stock control of the merchandise from Phil. Club events As well as many members meeting out in Tampa at Buc home games, we had two golf events and meals during the year, as well as getting together at Wembley. The message board makes arranging these things a lot easier. Buccaneer game DVDs In February 2008, I made a limited number of games available on order from both the 2007 Bucs season and some memorable games through franchise history. This proved extremely popular and one I will endeavour to repeat again early in 2010. What I am not going to do however on the simple account of the time and effort involved, is to make every game I have available, nor keep the offer open throughout the year. It will be a pre-ordained list of games and then a specific time period to place your orders. My game collection is now over 460 in terms of regular season games, as well as every post-season game the Buccaneers have played. Former Buccaneer players The list of ex-Bucs I am in contact with now grows by the week. Steve Wilson (76-85) is one of the main proponents of BUCPOWER around the NFL Alumni organisation and I had a great lunch with him in Tampa in October 2008. I have made DVD game copies available for former players which has meant more to them that you can possibly imagine. The 30th anniversary celebration of the 1979 team enabled me to make a bunch of new contacts as well as get to meet some people I had only known via e-mail. What I will start doing is producing interview features with these former players such as the one I did last year with Dave Reavis (76-83) which was extremely well received. The sort of players I talk to currently includes ex-Bucs such as Lee Roy Selmon, Jimmie Giles, Richard Wood, Kevin House, Steve Young, Jack Thompson and Doug Williams, along with other ex-NFLers as Ron Jaworski and Roger Staubach. The Bucs UK Fantasy Football League This was a Yahoo! Sports League created by Mike Davidson in 2006 and is has just completed its fourth season. It is a simple fantasy league in which you register, join a league and then the scoring is done for you all season. You can change your players weekly so long as you stay under a salary cap limit. The advantage over this compared to the previous Bucs UK League, is that there is no limit on how many people can play. One of the many complaints I had about the latter was that it was seen as a “closed shop” where no other Bucs UK member could easily get in. The 2009 Yahoo league had 50 Bucs UK members playing with a number more having told me in recent weeks they will play next year. We livened the league up by having specific competitions such as the best scores in September and November, and a really popular knockout cup over the final four weeks of the season. . NFL Films The documentary about the club that aired at the end of December 2009 will promote the club and BUCPOWER like nothing ever before. I will endeavour to make a copy of this programme available to every club member in the weeks ahead. Help needed I am always happy to receive articles for BUCPOWER.COM. As well as Lee Bromfield who contributes every Friday, the likes of Wayne Maw and Alex Howells have made multiple contributions, Nick Houllis and Chris Bruno have contributed from the other side of the Atlantic and anyone is welcome to join the ranks of the writers. Paul Stewart, 4 January 2010