A word about our new correspondent. As I embark on a new venture with Lincoln Vital website here is my first article

Like a lot of football fans I was taken to my first game at Sincil Bank by my Dad. In those days it was a near as Fathers got to helping out with the children. I guess it must have been the dog days of our time at Championship level, we certainly got beat most weeks, excellent preparation for what was to follow. As time went by we went together, with one or other of my children and then, I suppose, I took Dad. It’s funny. Through football I got to know my Dad. My Father was no different to other British Dads, not exactly hands on, that was left to Mum but as he became an old man, we would go off to the Bank together and, for evening games we would stop off for a couple of pints on the way home. There was none of that Father, Son awkwardness, we had football to discuss.

About a year ago I got a chance to write about the Imps. I subscribed to the Professional Footballers Associations web site, Give me football and they were looking for a correspondent for each of the Premier League and Football League clubs. I applied and waited for a reply. I waited and waited until, after much reminding I was invited to submit a test article for appraisal. I wrote about Chris Sutton, wealthy footballer and what was in it for him at Lincoln. I was accepted as the Lincoln City correspondent. It was at that point that I started to wonder what I had let myself in for. There was no brief, they would do the reports we were just to write in with our thoughts and opinions but, unlike a fan web site we had to bear in mind that this was the footballers own in house magazine so we had to mind our p’s and q’s. Oh and one more thing, we had to publicise ourselves. The PFA suggested we run a blog and use the social networks. I had no idea what to do to start a blog so I wrote to my editor asking for help. None was forthcoming.

Undaunted I decided to try Twitter, feeling Facebook a little too young for me, anyway my Daughter had banned me from it. I had already started on Twitter a little earlier. By this time I had my first article published. It flowed from my keyboard despite not professing to be any kind of football expert or indeed an expert on the Imps, I leave that to others but I’m capable of expressing my feelings and the first article was well received. I particularly remember an exiled fan from New Zealand getting in touch to say how much he had enjoyed my article and my own reminiscences of life in Lincoln and following City. Buoyed by that I fired off another article. Cue more waiting. My article didn’t appear in Give me Football. I contacted the Editor. They were not going to run with it. I got some handy hints and they were apologetic but it was an early lesson I had to learn. Articles had to pass muster or would not appear. Over the next few months a battle ensued to get my articles published, not because they weren’t good enough but because I was competing with their paid writers. The Lincoln City coverage was patchy to say the least and my twitter followers were telling me they were enjoying my stories far more than the stuff the website was producing, even complaining when regular stories from me weren’t in evidence. My stories were taking 48 hours to appear by which time they had lost their topicality. I needed readers but there was a little grid showing the most read stories and mine were usually at the top.

By this time I had enough published material to contact City. I confidently sent an e mail in with a link to my published stories asking for some publicity on the web site or in the programme. I received no reply. I wrote again wondering if they had misunderstood what I was about. It was not some fan web site; I was representing the PFA and therefore the players. The more publicity I got the more publicity I could generate for the club. Furthermore, there would never be any criticism as our brief was to show the club in a good light. Nothing. In fact not one single e mail I sent to the club about Give me Football was ever even acknowledged. I was beginning to find out about my beloved football club and how it regarded its supporters. I was about to find out what football thought of League Two and its followers too.

I don’t want to give the impression that all this was drudgery, It wasn’t. My articles were being regularly published now, without editorial change, apart from the headlines. Professional editors seem to want to make their mark and my carefully thought out and witty (I thought) teasers were routinely subjected to the sub editors hatchet and replaced with banality. Oh well, it’s their web site! Part of the appeal of writing for Give me Football was the incentive scheme which promised “money can’t buy” prizes for those whose stories were most successful, either in terms of readers or quality of writing. There were to be league tables of the writers showing who was doing best except these never appeared. Over the months it started to be apparent that the PFA were tiring of their own writer’s scheme. In fact no writer, except one received a money can’t buy experience and that writer was me. One Thursday I received an e mail asking if I would like to attend the forthcoming Watford v Derby County game as guest of the PFA. They were presenting the Championship player of the month award to Watford’s Danny Graham. Given that the alternative was watching City get trounced once again it was a no brainer.

I had a great day at Vicarage Road, met Graham Taylor and introduced myself as an Imp. I was very well received and it was clear the great man still holds the club in great affection. I wrote a write up of the day and this was published as a Give Me Football article, no disclaimer stating that the views expressed were my own. It was all dressed up with links to the fans competition. It looked really good, my finest hour. It was also my swansong as it happens, a couple of articles later I got an e mail saying they were not taking any more fan articles.

By this time I’d got the writing bug and enjoyed seeing my work published on the net. I e mailed the editor of Lincoln City Mad and spent a happy (in writing terms not football) remainder of the season giving my thoughts on things red and white. I’d also been contacted through twitter by Poacher the Imp’s alter ego Gary Hutchinson who was working on a revival of the old City fanzine The Deranged Ferret. He asked if I would like to contribute to the opening publication. I jumped at the chance.

I stayed in touch with Give me Football but it became clear that the fan writer scheme was dead and buried. The hoped for increase in readership had not materialised, neither did the incentive scheme, league tables and money can’t buy experiences, apart from my trip to Watford. In a final amusing if it wasn’t so sad, side swipe I was told the amazing fact that more people log on to read their articles on the premiership than read us fan writers efforts on the fortunes of more humble teams. It would all be academic anyway as they don’t cover non league teams so I would have been out in the cold in any case. Word reached me that Vitals would be interested on taking my stories. I was told that Lincoln City Mad was not going to continue as it was so; once again I grasped the opportunity to see my work on the net.

My take on the season and matters at Sincil Bank will begin shortly.