Premiership winners Manchester City won the Media Choice Award at the 2012 Football Hospitality Awards last night (24 May). The award was presented by Mash Media’s Managing Director Julian Agostini at the AMEX Community Stadium home of Brighton and Hove Albion FC and was hosted by the Stadium Experience marketing consortium.
Aston Villa Football Club scooped the Overall Matchday Experience Award and Swansea City took the Conference and Events Sales and Marketing Award sponsored by BDRC Continental.
Now in their 8th year, the awards recognise the efforts and dedication shown by the catering, conference and events team at UK football clubs.
Vital parts of the business operation of football clubs were represented at the ceremony, including chefs, waiting staff and kitchen porters. Staff were awarded at stadiums from the Premier League to League Division Two.
The Directors Choice Awards for catering went, respectively, in League Two to Brard City; in League One, MK Dons; the Championship, Brighton and Hove Albion FC, and in the Scottish Premier League Inverness Caledonian Thistle FC.
Everton were the directors’ choice in the English Premier League. This year’s top team on Merseyside also scooped Silver in the Chef Team of the Year sponsored by Salon Culinaire Aston Villa won the category.
Delighted with the evening’s success, Stadium Experience Chair Person Lisette Maas, from Notts County Football Club, said: “The recognition given to those nominated and those who won awards is vital to the morale and continued dedication of the catering and events departments at our football clubs. They work tirelessly behind the scenes on match days and non-matchdays, to ensure that, in some instances, up to 90,000 visitors are catered for.”
Also recognised on the night were the founding members of Stadium Experience, which is celebrating 10 years this year. Next year’s awards have been penciled in for May 2013 with a Northern venue likely to host.
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