This episode is with James Gibbins, Experience & Engagement Director and part of the senior leadership team at Walsall Football Club.

In it we talk about a wide range of subject, from personalisation to in-person engagement, structured fan engagement’s overlap with community engagement and their success in using this to grow their average attendances, and one of my go-to subjects: how good leadership enables staff, encourages their good instincts and helps develop good practice. 

We also touch on Think Fan Engagement’s upcoming research report on fan engagement which is out very, very soon, and we sing the praises of Huddersfield Town and Blackburn Rovers. Intrigued? Listen on.

Go to fanengagement.net to signup for news about our plans. 

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This week it’s Aarayaman Banerji, Head of Football Governance at LCP. In it we discuss what the impact of the Independent Regulator is likely to be on fan engagement, looking at:

• Overview of what the regulator is likely to focus on
• What could regulation look like in practice
• Minimum standards across the pyramid – different clubs are in different starting positions
• Resources, leadership and culture
• We also give you a sneak preview of some of the content of our soon to be published research paper that was co-authored by Aaryaman before he took up his role at LCP, and which we’re publishing very soon.

Don’t forget we’ve postponed our planned workshop, Life with Football Legislation; preparing for meaningful fan engagement & consultation on the 5th of November. Stay tuned for more on this in the near future. 

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We’re returning the pod to a regular episode. From now on we’ll be publishing an episode once a month on various subjects. 

This week is a chat between me and my new colleague Natasha Simms, our new Fan Engagement and Communications Associate, who was appointed in the summer.

In it we go ‘back to basics’, asking what is fan engagement, what some of the misconceptions are about it and how fan engagement has evolved since the first Fan Engagement Index in 2019. We also discuss some of the challenges for supporters’ trusts, and fan advisory boards in particular, and I give my view on what I think a newly appointed fan engagement officer at a football club should focus on in their first six months in the job.

Don’t forget to book for Life with Football Legislation; preparing for meaningful fan engagement & consultation at the Wesley Hotel, Euston on the 5th of November. Go to fanengagement.net/events to read more and signup. We’ve got special ticket deals when you buy two together.

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We’re releasing the first of these today because we couldn’t wait, but from Series 2, Episode 2, it’ll be once a month on the first Monday.

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This year’s fan engagement index comes on the verge of the biggest shakeup in the way football is run in decades. The new independent regulator for football will for the first time see clubs regulated in part for their fan engagement. This is an important step, but not the only one. 

The fan engagement index has been running since the 2018/2019 season, and we’ve helped to drive standards in football ever since then, helping to define what good fan engagement looks like.

This is also the second year we’ve run the fan engagement awards, where we award clubs with a gold, silver, bronze or merit award, depending on their score. 

This year we’ve seen an increase in the number receiving an award, as well as a double for one club. Who is it? Listen to find out!

2024/2025 Fan Engagement Award Winners. The full table is at fanengagement.net/fan-engagement-index

So congratulations to all those clubs who finished with an award. For those who didn’t, I know you’ll all be working hard to improve for next year. There are so many people who work hard for their clubs at all levels of fan engagement who don’t always get the recognition they deserve, and whether your club won an award or not, thank you for your hard work over the season.

Now more than ever, with the era of the independent regulator approaching, clubs across the football pyramid need to do more to engage with their most important stakeholders – the fans. But regulation has never been the silver bullet, and change relies on everyone - clubs, leagues, governing bodies, the regulator, fans and their representatives - to play their part. 

We’ve seen countless improvements from clubs since we started seven years ago in this our seventh edition. 

The Fan Engagement Index has already massively impacted the activities and culture of football. I’ll leave the final word to two of the top clubs in fan engagement in the country, at different ends of the pyramid, first, Southend United, who said:

"Being recognised in this way, particularly as the top National League club and the only National League winner of a fan engagement award, is proof that engagement works, even without the resources of bigger clubs. Regulation will bring welcome standards across the game, but regulation alone isn’t enough. Culture is what makes the difference and it’s what ensures engagement doesn’t stop when the cameras do.

Or as Everton Chief Executive Angus Kinnear, says, “A club is strongest when it listens, involves and evolves alongside its supporters”

I’d like to thank all those involved who helped with the index this year, including Lane Clarke and Peacock Sport Analytics and Advisory, who supported us by analysing overall trends over the past seven years, and also looking in particular at clubs which have excelled throughout or upped their game significantly over the period. Go to http://lcp.com/en/sports for more.

And before I go, a quick plug for our Our next, Life with Football Legislation: Preparing for Meaningful Fan Engagement and Consultation. We’ll be announcing the date and venue very soon!

Keep an ear out for the next edition of the fan engagement pod.

Music: Swing Party

Beat Mekanik

Attribution 4.0 International

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

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Join Everton FC, Lincoln City FC, Manchester United & Chelsea Supporters Trusts, plus Rhion Jones, Consultation Guru and Lane Clark and Peacock on the 14th May in London for Life with Football Legislation; Preparing for meaningful fan engagement and consultation.

This event is tailored for football club executives, senior managers, supporters’ trusts, industry bodies or specialists, those in marketing and communications roles, sports policy-makers, or those specialising in public engagement programmes.

Go to https://www.tickettailor.com/events/thinkfanengagement/1650506 to book or use the QR code in the episode.

Thanks to LCP for their Event Sponsorship and also to Tractivity for their Lead Sponsorship. Links below.

Tractivity: https://www.tractivity.co.uk

LCP: https://www.lcp.com

Everton: https://www.evertonfc.com/fans

Lincoln City: https://www.weareimps.com/fans

CST: https://chelseasupporterstrust.com

MUST: https://www.imust.org.uk

Rhion Jones, Consultation Guru: https://consultationguru.co.uk

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This episode is the first of what I hope will be several with the UK’s expert on consultation, Rhion Jones. Known professionally as the Consultation Guru, we’ve been collaborating for some months now as the Football Governance Bill makes its way through parliament, paying specific interest to the provisions on consultation and engagement. You can read the letter we wrote to the minister in charge of the bill in the Lords, Baroness Twycross, and the reply she sent, on https://fanengagement.net

The Gunning Principles

1. Proposals are still at a formative stage: A final decision has not yet been made, or predetermined, by the decision makers

2. There is sufficient information to give ‘intelligent consideration’: The information provided must relate to the consultation and must be available, accessible, and easily interpretable for consultees to provide an informed response

3. There is adequate time for consideration and response: There must be sufficient opportunity for consultees to participate in the consultation. There is no set timeframe

for consultation, despite the widely accepted twelve-week consultation period, as the length of time given for consultee to respond can vary depending on the subject and extent of impact of the consultation

4. ‘Conscientious consideration’ must be given to the consultation responses before a decision is made: Decision-makers should be able to provide evidence that they took consultation responses into account

Read more at consultationguru.co.uk

We discuss how consultation works, why it’s different to engagement, and why its impact on football could be very positive. 

If you want to get in touch, ask a question or suggest a topic or guest, or register your interest in the event myself and Rhion will be hosting in late Feb/early March 2025, drop me a line at [email protected] 

Episode links available in the podcast description. Subscribe to the View on Fan Engagement via https://fanengagement.net/join

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Welcome to the Fan Engagement Pod. 

Don’t forget the first event of the Fan Engagement Network is on the 26th July at Bristol Rovers. It’s a joint event with Rovers and CEO Tom Gorringe will be speaking.

If you work or volunteer in a fan engagement role at a club, a CEO, MD, director or owner and want to attend, drop us a line at [email protected] and we’ll reserve you a place.

This episode is with the aforementioned Tom, Liam Scully, CEO of Lincoln City, and Ryan Sparks, CEO of League Two Bradford City. 

The three of them have done impressive jobs with each of the clubs they run, placing structured and strategic Fan Engagement at the heart of what they do, ensuring it feeds into decision making and key commercial decisions.

They tell us their lessons from their time in charge, including the learning curve, how each club is unique, but how to apply experiences from elsewhere - including other sports, and how winning only papers over the cracks of a creaking structure. 

As Liam himself says, this is an exciting time to be in charge of a football club. We’re seeing genuine changes in how clubs are run, with good Fan Engagement now being seen as a positive opportunity. All three are clear that reform - financial and administrative - through the new Independent Regulator will make that opportunity even greater, especially when it comes to staffing in key Fan Engagement roles.

If you want to get in touch, ask a question or suggest a topic or guest, drop me a line at [email protected] 

Episode links

• Independent Regulator White Paper: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/a-sustainable-future-reforming-club-football-governance/a-sustainable-future-reforming-club-football-governance
• Bristol Rovers Fan Engagement section: https://www.bristolrovers.co.uk/club/fan-engagement
• Bradford City Supporter Services website: https://support.bradfordcityafc.com
• Lincoln City Supporters Board & new 'Four Party' group: https://www.weareimps.com/club/policies

Keep an eye out on https://fanengagement.net and find our socials on https://linktr.ee/thinkfanengagement 

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This episode is with Aaryaman Banerji, author of the Civitas report, Governing the Beautiful Game, The Future of Football in Civil Society.

Aaryaman produced the report as Lead Football Analyst at Civitas, a political think tank based out of Westminster. Civitas is an independent think tank which conducts forensic research and analysis into critical topics within the British political ecosystem, in order to instruct government policy and shape public debate.

He has a widely respected FIFA Masters and a Master's Degree in History from Durham University, where his research focused on the socio-political and economic history of football.

He has experience working as a journalist for the Football Association and the Black Collective of Media in Sport, whilst helping in the administration and management of an amateur football club in London.

We discuss why the Tories as a largely non-interventionist party have decided to intervene, how the fan led review addressed the impact of years of poor club-fan relations and fan engagement regulation, the nature of the business model of clubs, and how the soon-to-be independent regulator will impact the quality of administration and ownership, and ultimately, fan engagement in the game. 

Episode Links

Civitas Report: https://www.civitas.org.uk/publications/governing-the-beautiful-game

Fan Led Review: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/fan-led-review-of-football-governance-securing-the-games-future/fan-led-review-of-football-governance-securing-the-games-future

Black Collective of Media in Sport (BCOMS): https://bcoms.co

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This is our first face-to-face recording, done at the RSA in John Adam Street, just off the Strand in London, where I’m a fellow. Apologies for some background noise at times.

This episode is with Kat Law and Martin Cloake, who until last year were co-chairs of the Tottenham Hotspur Supporters Trust, and who formally stepped down from the board this year. 

If you want to know what meeting with Spurs CEO Daniel Levy & the rest of the executive board was like, how they dealt with the aftermath of the European Super League car-crash and why they stopped their regular board-to-board meetings with the club, this one’s for you.

The collaborative efforts between groups like theirs and supporters’ trusts at rival clubs like Arsenal & Chelsea, was and remains a great tonic to the excesses of the modern, often confected, rivalry between fans off the pitch. As Supporters Direct founder Brian Lomax always said: what unites us off the pitch is greater than what divides us over 90 minutes. 

I’ve known and at times, worked with both, for many years, and have always liked and respected their honesty, application and professionalism. Their desire to always do what they judged to be the right thing, and to do it well, has never been in question. Kat is still involved with the FSA nationally, and was also on the FA Council for a period.

They formed part of the Premier League group of supporters’ trusts that I helped establish & oversee at Supporters Direct, which was the engine for the successful campaign to reduce away ticket prices in the Premier League, and also numerous pieces of policy and campaigning work we did in the game around regulation and fan engagement, and other areas such as Assets of Community Value.

If you’re interested in the RSA, including how to become a fellow or use their facilities, go to https://www.thersa.org for more.

If you want to get in touch, ask a question or suggest a topic or guest, drop me a line at [email protected] 

Episode Links

• Tottenham Hotspur Supporters Trust: https://www.thstofficial.com  
• The Football Supporters Association: https://thefsa.org.uk 
• Martin Cloake's Substack (The Football Fan): https://martincloake.substack.com

Episode links available in the podcast description. Keep an eye out on https://fanengagement.net and find our socials on https://linktr.ee/thinkfanengagement 

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This episode is a chat with Deborah Dilworth, Head of Women’s Football at the Football Supporters Association. 

Our paths very nearly crossed, as she joined Supporters Direct not long after I left, though then working in the men’s game with supporters’ trusts. She took up a role post-merger of SD & the FSF, and now leads on The FSA’s work in the women’s game.

She meets with The FA and other key stakeholders regularly, and supports and advises the new slew of supporters organisations in the rapidly growing women’s game.

Pound for pound, this is one of the best episodes I’ve ever done of the Pod. Deborah doesn’t have a fixed mindset on the issues, and our chat is a proper exploration of some of the issues that are currently affecting a game that, let’s not forget, wasn’t even allowed to exist until the early 70s, after a ban lasting from the early 1920s was finally lifted.

I hope you enjoy the episode. I’m planning on getting Debs back on for another chat in the future. 

If you want to get in touch, ask a question or suggest a topic or guest, drop me a line at [email protected] 

Episode Links

• The Football Supporters Association (Women’s football): https://thefsa.org.uk/our-work/womens-football  
• The Women’s National League: https://fulltime.thefa.com/index.html?league=872938 

Keep an eye out on https://fanengagement.net and find our socials on https://linktr.ee/thinkfanengagement 

Register for free and you get access to the Fan Engagement Hub, with more detailed data and case studies from all the Fan Engagement Indexes.

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