The title may mislead slightly, Liam isn’t looking to bring anything specific over from Doncaster, but one question posed was if he could choose one thing to bring over, what would that be?
Generally there isn’t one specific thing he’d like to replicate here, Liam is (and always has been) very clear that Lincoln City and Doncaster Rovers are very different football clubs. In every chat I’ve had with him, every forum I’ve seen him in, he’s always stressed he is here to find Lincoln solutions to Lincoln problems. Whilst it may sound obvious, the easy route for any manager to take when changing businesses is to bring his old ideas with him. I’ve done it, trying to bring Howdens Huntingdon offers and approaches to Louth. It doesn’t always work.
What Liam wants to do is bring an ethos more than any single idea or scheme. He’s very fan focused, although we discussed earlier in the week about his remit with a new stadium, he has a clear idea of what a fan should expect from their club. Just have a look around tomorrow, a fan zone packed with people, pouring points and initiatives. Every week it changes slightly, there was a bench this week for people and I believe different food outlets will be coming in as well. These are all based on feedback and improving the offer for us.
At Doncaster they ran a competition to design the club kit, rather controversially won by some lad from One Direction whom I’m informed by my other half are a popular boy band. Now, Liam has stressed this is an example of what they’ve done and not a commitment, but it demonstrates that inclusion of fans I keep hearing about. Honestly, how many of you that were around during the days of Peter Jackson and Chris Sutton felt that the club didn’t understand you? I felt detached and I worked for the club. Tomorrow the SLO’s start, introduced today on Twitter, aimed at helping people around the ground on a match day. There are talks of a supporters board in the future, a route for all fans to communicate directly with Liam and the club. Lets face it, when before would the CEO of Lincoln City have spared an hour for someone such as myself to throw questions at him?
The whole kit design thing sounds great, although Liam did stress this wasn’t a rock solid plan. He is due to fly to Errea in the coming weeks to suggest ways of improving the offering, at Doncaster fans designed kits and voted on the best one each year. Whichever got picked became to clubs kit. Now, the worst Imps kit in living memory, the awful purple and green effort circa 1995, came from a fans pen. Similarly the home kit that year was an impressive red shirt with two white stripes, and had cracking details such as the imp around the sleeves. Maybe there is legs in something like this, just something else that makes the fans feel they are influencing the club.
It is interesting as well as the kit design he mentioned ‘Donny Dog’s Kennel’ where kids could go before a match, play on video games, meet players and generally come together. I like that idea, I know not all fans welcome children and families for some reason, but I do. I was a kid once and if I hadn’t been made to feel welcome at the ground, I wouldn’t have been a lifelong Imps fan. Liam is aware there are a lot of fans out there who want to belong to the club in a way more involved than rocking up and paying £20 to get in. Liam Scully gets it.
Listen below to his answer in full. Thank you to Pete Summers for the question.
I’d also like to thank Liam for his candid answers and for taking the time to speak to me. All too often the ‘professional’ media get priority over those of us trying to scratch a living on the indie circuit, but as a fresh-thinking and inclusive CEO Liam understands the place alternative media has within the game and actively encourages it. I appreciate it immensely and I’m sure you, the readers of the Stacey West, do too.