Castore co-founder Tom Beahon has detailed the ‘extreme’ measures taken by his business to try to meet the demands of Rangers fans [RangersTV].
The Liverpool-based organisation were announced as Rangers’ new kit and retail partners back in May in what was described as a new era for the club following years of legal battles with Sports Direct.
Since then, Castore have won rave reviews from fans for the high-quality new home kits and goalkeeper jerseys.
However, when many pre-ordered shirts didn’t arrive in time for the first match of the Premiership season on Saturday, fans took to social media to express their disappointment.
Tom Beahon says the global health crisis has provided a major challenge for all sports brands but insists his company have done everything within their power to distribute their products in a timely manner.
“We’ve really gone to extreme lengths to get these kits into the hands of fans as quickly as possible,” he told RangersTV. “What that means, in reality, is that we’ve had chartered planes flying kits directly from our factories in Europe into our warehouses rather than waiting for commercial air travel or doing it via ships which is what most brands do.”
“We’ve had staff working every weekend since we signed the deal to really do that as quickly as we possibly can and we’ve really pulled out all of the stops.
“I think it’s probably well known that given that our partnership only started on 1st August, that was when we were really allowed to start sending the kits out. So, I know there’s been frustration from fans…but we’ve worked as hard as we possibly can and hopefully, we’ve broken the back of it now and fans will start receiving the kits.”
Castore explain Rangers kit struggles – Verdict
After the promises that abounded in the weeks following the announcement of the deal between Rangers and Castore, it’s little surprise that fans were frustrated to be without kits over the weekend.
Right from the beginning, some supporters had questioned how a newcomer in the industry would be able to handle the demand and to that end, it hasn’t been a good start.
As Beahon pointed out, though, the global health crisis has led to unprecedented challenges for businesses of all kinds and the legal restrictions around the official start date of the partnership made things more difficult than they may otherwise have been.
Providing there are no further delays with this first batch of products, this looks like passing off as a blip rather than a disaster.
