Swindon Wildcats

Club Profile

Information	Detail
Club Name	Bespoke Guardians Swindon Wildcats
Club Logo
Year Founded	1986 – 1996	Swindon Wildcats
	1996 – 1997	Swindon Ice Lords
	1997 – 2000	Swindon Chill
	2000 – 2001	Swindon Phoenix
	2001 – 2004	Swindon Lynx
	2004 – Present	Swindon Wildcats
Title Sponsors	Bespoke Guardians
Home Town	Swindon, Wiltshire
Home Rink	Better Link Centre, Whitehill Way, Westlea, Swindon SN5 7DL
League	NIHL
Division	National League
Team Colours	White, Red, and Black
2023-24 Team Jerseys
What is their website?	www.swindonwildcats.com
How do I get tickets?	Visit the Swindon Wildcats ticket purchasing page: Tickets
General Manager & Head Coach	Aaron Nell (#19)
Captain	Tyler Plews (#24)
Alternate Captains	Chris Jones (#11) Ryan Wells (#12)
Championships Won
League Titles	4	(1996/7), (2000/01), (2018/19), (2025/26)
Autumn Cups	3	(1991), (2017/18), (2021)
Premier Cups	1	(2017/18)

Scratch

During the Summer off-Season in 2021, Willie Wildcat retired from his role as Swindon Wildcats mascot. During the off season, the backroom staff of the club hunted for a new mascot. Amazingly, they gave the role to ex-mascot, Willie’s cousin, Scratch, who was named by the fans of the club.

Quickly, Scratch became a fan favourite, and began to get the title as the Best Mascot in the League by fans. So much so did Scratch become a firm favourite that during the 2022/23 he started his own supporters club for the younger members of the fan base.

During a game night at the ‘Lair’ Scratch is fully involved in the experience. As the doors open, Scratch can be found in the main foyer welcoming fans through the door and created, what can only be described as Scratch chaos, before joining the Swindon Wildcats Commercial Manager, Sally Fox-Price on the ice for the T-shirt cannon. Once he has been left on the ice alone, he goes about warming up the crowd, leading Mexican Waves, impersonating Freddie Mercury or leading chants of ‘Wildcats’. Scratch welcomes the players on the ice. During the game he stands beside the home team bench, leading the cheering of the fans, and entertaining all with his moves during the music in breaks in play. During the period breaks, Scratch can be found floating around the rink interacting with fans, and arriving up in the balcony to lead the joining in of Country Roads before Period 3 begins, at the front of the balcony somewhere!

This is just some of the mischief that Scratch gets up to of a game night, he is definitely a big part of the game night and club.

What is Scratch?

Scratch is an anthropomorphized wildcat.

Photographs of Swindon Wildcats Ice Hockey Club’s mascot Scratch used with thanks to KLM Photography, Official Game Night Photographer.

Our Rink Presence

One of the first things that we did as part of our sponsorship of the Swindon Wildcats was to sign up to having a rink board showing our brand and information to every visitor that visits the rink all-year round and not just during the games. It is believed that 250,000 people enter the rink during the year, of which up to 1,400 people during a game.

We are proud to have a spot in the rink that is directly behind the goal, at the Block A end of the balcony. This is an important end of the rink as our home team aim at this goal during both Period 1 and 3. Being prominently behind the goal also ensures that we get seen by all.

We think that having a board in the rink is a vital dove-tail of our sponsorship as we have a player, Reed Sayers, carrying our fox on his shirt. When Reed:

• Enters the ice at the start of the game,
• Scores a Goal, or an assist,
• Gets put into the Sin Bin to serve a penalty,
• Wins Player of the Match, or
• Wins Player of the Month,

His sponsor gets announced along with his name and whichever of the above he is being acknowledged for. Having the rink board means that fans, and occasional Hockey-goers can then identify our board and details in order to contact us should they have the training requirement.

Photos used with thanks to KLM Photography, Former Official Game Night Photographer.

Photos used with thanks to KLM Photography, Former Official Game Night Photographer.

We also asked Reed:

If you weren’t an ice hockey player, what sport would you be playing? Reed told us that he would be playing Golf!

Fox On Shorts

The 3rd aspect of our sponsorship deal, came about following the Covid impacted season. We have now got our logo on the front right leg of the shorts of the team. We use the hashtag #FoxOnShorts for this part of our sponsorship!

Having the fox on the shorts, means that at all times we are represented on the ice, and are fully ensuring the impact of our logo and brand during game time. We are clearly identifiable in all photographs that are taken by the official game night photographer, and others, ensuring that our logo goes near and far.

Our Logo is now seen in 12 rinks across the country during a season:

• Better Link Centre, our home ice Rink,

• Basingstoke Bison (Planet Ice, Basingstoke),
• Bristol Pitbulls (Planet Ice, Bristol),
• Hull Seahawks (Hull Arena),
• Leeds Knights (Planet Ice, Leeds),
• MK Lightning (Planet Ice, Milton Keynes),
• Peterborough Phantoms (Planet Ice, Peterborough),
• Raiders IHC (Sapphire Ice & Leisure),
• Sheffield Steeldogs (iceSheffield),
• Solway Sharks (Dumfries Ice Bowl),
• Telford Tigers (Telford Ice Rink), and

• Planet Ice, Coventry (Final Four Weekend, should our team qualify).

We are proud to sponsor the Swindon Wildcats and will look at how we can continue to support the team going forward.

Examples of how our logo on the team shorts can be seen.

Photos used with thanks to KLM Photography, Official Game Night Photographer.