It’s unlikely anyone in sport will forget Friday 13th of March when football across the country was suspended. That weekend, AFC moved swiftly to get set up for home-working and start planning for how the Club would respond to the repercussions of the coronavirus-imposed lock-down.

One of our first responses was to reflect on our purpose. Essentially, we’re an entertainment business but we’re unable to entertain right now. We’re also a focal point, an institution unlike any other that brings people together through a shared love of football. The Club is at the heart of our community. We touch the lives of so many in that community in so many positive ways and, to underline that purpose, we needed to demonstrate it in a tangible way.

Exploring how we could use this affinity and our extensive reach to support our fans and the wider community during this time resulted in our #StillStandingFree campaign. Working as one with the AFC Community Trust, we are delivering vital support through the deliveries of food packages and essentials to those who need it most. Not only is this the right thing to do in these unprecedented times, when people are struggling with uncertainty, anxiety and financial difficulties, it enables us to earn and bank goodwill for the future. This is a time for making friends, not money.

Through #StillStandingFree, we’ve succeeded in getting our city and region to fall back in love with their Club. As someone said on Twitter: “Larger clubs talking about furloughs, conspiracy theories, cynical voting, the usual junk. My football club is feeding the needy, visiting the poorly, calling the elederly and vulnerable. Very proud.”

It was evident that, with our ability to generate income severely constrained as a result of no matches, cashflow was our biggest challenge, and we took swift measures to address this in the short to medium-term. With the initial shock of lock-down behind us and, as we started to adjust to what may be a new norm, we began to think more long-term and more proactively about our message and our products and how we would come out of this world-changing period in the best possible shape.

Normally, at this time in the season, our main focus is on preparing for match-days, we go from one game to another, with little time to think and to plan. However, with no matches, now is a good time for us, indeed for any sports’ organisation, to take a fresh look at our business model and, in particular, the fan journey.

We are reimagining that journey, examining how we best attract interested fans now, with a softer approach that will, hopefully, convert them into buyers later.

A key pillar of our approach to this has been #StillStandingFree where, in addition to the food deliveries, we are undertaking a mass outreach programme with a commitment to check-in with 12,000 fans by the end of May. A phone call from a Club rep, a first team player, Dons legend or even the Chairman, has lifted the spirits of over 5,000 fans already.

With time to spare, we’ve been developing relevant and creative content for our channels which taps into the sentiment and nostalgia, informs, entertains and, above all, brings comfort and a smile to fans when they need it most. Equally, we’ve been able to engage much more on social media, responding promptly with message of thanks, considering requests for “shout-outs” and answering queries directly. This greater transparency and engagement are already paying dividends, extending our reach and amplifying our messages. This improvement in engagement allows us to attract, track, connect and then convert our fans from, for example, a single game attendee becoming a season ticket holder or AberDNA member.

As part of this, and through the generosity of our investors, we linked the selling of season tickets to a 10% matched donation to the Trust so fans feel good about their investment in AFC.

With no decision on the end of the current season or how and when the new season will begin, fans investing in or considering buying season tickets understandably want to know what they will get. We are committed to working on delivering value to repay our fans for their loyalty over the next few months. All this involves lateral and creative thinking and we’re currently developing a range of solutions for adapting premium benefits to a reality that will inevitably involve playing behind closed doors.

Our fans are at the heart of everything we do but we also have to consider our partners, sponsors and corporates. How do we keep them happy and engaged when we don’t have the match-day experience and exposure that fulfils their investment? We’ve been in regular communication with them, exploring how we can deliver alternative value now and in the future, looking at over-delivering on what’s contractually obligated to them, to consider expenses beyond the original budget. One example of this is our commercial webinars which start this Friday. Around 10 of our corporate partners will be joining me and a player for an update on the Club and an opportunity to discuss corporate and commercial challenges in the current environment.

Members of our By Official Appointment initiative, which aims to become the “go-to” business to business programme in the region, have seen demand for their services wane or, in some cases, wiped out. We’ve been actively promoting them on our channels and encouraging our fans to support these local businesses as they transform how they deliver their services or seek payment in advance for services which can be redeemed in the future.

In conclusion, if the pandemic has taught us one thing, it’s that we need to use the lock-down time wisely to reinvent ourselves in order to emerge into a changed world with a fresh outlook on how we do business.