Sir, – I note that a UK company confident of ultimate victory produced 18,000 T-shirts with the message “England World Cup Winners 2022″ (Sport, December 13th).
Having lost to France, they had a dilemma. However, the managing director of Wholesale Clearance UK appealed to England fans to purchase the shirts as a piece of history and a reminder of how well the team performed.
The price, however, was reduced from £29.99 to £9.99.
There was a much better solution found by a Kerryman in 1982 when he printed thousands of T-shirts with the message “Kerry Five in a Row”. When the overwhelming favourites lost to Offaly, he adopted a different strategy.
He swallowed his pride and took the shirts to Offaly where they sold like wildfire.
If the UK company adopted a similar strategy and sent their merchandise across the channel to France they would not only have cut their losses but would probably have enjoyed a considerable mark-up on the original price of £29.99.
Sometimes it’s better to just suck it up. – Yours, etc,
JOHN MacINERNEY,
Swords,
Co Dublin.