It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I have been contacted by many constituents and by my local football team, the Imps. They all support giving fans a choice on safe standing. Lincoln has one of the highest numbers of respondents in support of this e-petition of any area. A huge proportion of my local community are Imps fans. Weekly games at Lincoln’s Sincil Bank bring our whole community together. The atmosphere is electric.
Lincoln Imps are a club on the up. We were promoted in 2017 to league two and earlier this year, we won the Checkatrade Trophy. We are really proud of that. The managers won the Lincoln civic award, too.
Danny Cowley—an Essex lad, actually—who manages the Imps with his brother Nicky, has said many times how struck he is by the allegiance people have to their club and city, and how proud people are to be Lincoln. The bottom line is that communities identify with their football clubs and football connects communities. That is why we have to get it right with safe standing.