Aston Villa stars from the 1982 European Cup winning team are turning out to help delivery company DPD make its first Sunday deliveries – of the football club’s new away kit.
Gordon Cowans, Gary Shaw (pictured, left, with DPD driver Zack Lunn), Tony Morley, Kenny Swain, Ken McNaught and Colin Gibson are the former footballers who will be hitching a ride in six Aston Villa-branded DPD vans in and around Birmingham on Sunday July 13 to deliver the new kit to 100 competition winners. The winning recipients will be chosen randomly from those who have preordered the new Villa away kit before midnight tonight. They’ll receive their orders on Sunday morning, when the vans will leave Villa Park to begin their rounds at 10am.
Seven days later, the DPD Sunday delivery service will launch in full on July 20, with a service that promises to deliver to 98% of the UK population.
Russell Jones, Aston Villa’s head of marketing and communications said: “Our new away kit has more than a passing resemblance to the shirt the team wore for the 1982 European Cup final, so we thought it would be very special indeed to get the guys together again and create a bit of magic for our fans. It should be a great day and we’re very grateful to DPD for helping make it possible.
“As we are using DPD’s Predict service, fans will receive a notification the night before and will then be given a one-hour delivery slot so they aren’t hanging around all day. The notification from DPD will even tell them which legend will be delivering their shirt and they can then track their own legend on the DPD website as he makes his way around his route, all the way to their front door. As a result, we’re hoping fans will be able to get some family and friends round and make it a very special delivery!”
Dwain McDonald, DPD’s chief executive, said: “As a Stoke City fan I can certainly remember one very happy Sunday involving the Villa last season! But even I can appreciate that having a European Cup legend turn up on your doorstep with your new shirt is pretty cool!
“We think Sunday deliveries are going to be a huge success. We’ve had a tremendous amount of interest from existing customers and other retailers who can see the appeal. Many of them run seven-day operations already and want to offer a wider range of delivery options for their end customer. The project to expand our network into a seven-day a week operation has gone well and everything is in place now for the big nationwide kick-off on July 20.”
