Our Badge
Nothing exemplifies a club’s identity more than the badge. Clubs typically have badges at their inception. It may have changed over the course of history but, ultimately, it Represents “us”. It represents us in the sense that the detail of the badge shows our experiences. It shows the specific detail of the club’s past. It represents us in the sense that the badge is on the team kit, meaning we are explicitly representing “us” when we pull on the shirt.
As well as connecting the team to the vision of the future and what we can become, building on the What’s our legacy task in the Reflect chapter, you can also connect your team to the badge that represents “us”. Get to know the history of the badge. What do the different elements represent? Badges speak to the club’s history, underlying values, and overall identity. Share these stories with your team. Connect them with the triumphs of the previous team members who stood where they now stand.
A nice activity to run, particularly in youth sport, is to challenge your team to draw a new badge for the team/club. Players could work together in teams and draw a badge, before presenting it (and why they drew what they did) to the rest of the team. This can be a useful reflective activity to understand to what extent we (as a team) represent the badge/history of the club. This will assist in bringing people together under the badge, and increasing your team’s understanding of what they represent when they train and compete for the club.