FAN VILLAGE PHENOMENON

ROB BRADLEY EXPLAINS HOW WATCHING THE GAME IS NOW ONLY PART OF THE EXPERIENCE...

- ROB BRADLEY

I’M of a vintage where pre-match entertainment used to mean things like spending lunchtime in the Gold-en Eagle pub on Lincoln High Street playing 13-card brag and then at five to three dashing to Sincil Bank to see Graham Taylor’s record-breaking Imps pulverise their opponents into submission.

Fast forward many, many years and I find myself at the current Lincoln City gazing in awe at what’s on offer before the game in their University of Lincoln Fan Village.

I’m not sure if the Fan Zone or Fan Village phenomenon is a particularly new thing. At Premier League clubs it probably isn’t. But more and more smaller clubs are now setting them up and you have to say what a good initiative they are.

More recently I’d spent a few years at part-time Lincoln United helping behind the scenes.