Alan Liptrott is 56 and a Gillingham fan. He has been all his life. He has worked for the club, he has run their supporter's club and he has run an unofficial web-site for them. And when domain names became cheap and affordable to Joe Public he purchased gillinghamfc.co.uk and then his problems started.
Alan is the editor of the Gillingham Rivals site (click here) and he purchased the domain name to run with the site. Gillingham chairman Paul Scally demanded that not only should Alan hand the club the domain but he should also pay £6,000 to the club for lost revenue through the fact that he had that domain name.
Which seems a little Petty especially when, as Alan says "I'm no cyber squatter. I offered it to the chairman a few years ago, but he didn't want it at the time" he told this month's Four Four Two magazine.
Paul Scally though sees it differently "Gillingham FC is obviously a trading name of the football club and we felt that anybody else using it would be passing off as the club. Evenm now he uses gillinghamfc.co.uk as his personal e-mail address and we feel that anyone receiving a message from him could assume that he works officially for us. His site runs a rival betting service, mobile phone packages and merchandise all of which affect our income streams as we run similar services as part of our internet deal with Premium TV"
And so the argument rages. Ironically Paul and Alan used to sit together in the directors box at Gills matches and even used to travel together to away fixtures. But not any more as Alan has been banned from the Priestfield stadium for the past two seasons although he still tries to get in via some disguises. But this in itself causes some problems
"I feel that I have most of the supporters on my side" says Alan, "Some though still don't understand. They say that I have brought it on myself and that I am greedy." Indeed, he was thrown out of one game when he was recognised by a fellow fan "It was one of our own that shopped me to security when I sneaked in wearing a disguise. That hurt me, one of our own wanted me out" But not all feel the same "Someone stuffed £250 in £10 notes through my letter box to pay for a plane to fly over Priestfield saying 'Life the ban on Alan' That restored the faith in my fight"
And Alan looks back over the fall out and wonders where it all went wrong "We used to be really close" he says of Paul Scally "I don't know why it came to this"
It's difficult to know from this who is in the right. Alan has every right to buy the domain name and is it his fault that he got in there first when it became available? At the same time you can see the chairman's point that he wants it for the club but a ban seems a little excessive from this? In fairness as well to Alan, anyone typing in gillinghamfc.co.uk gets a portal where you can visit Alan's Rivals site or the official site of Gillingham FC so that seems a fair enough move?
When you read of stories like this it makes me thankful that we have a board that read the unofficial web-sites without seeing them as a threat to their business. The dot com bubble has burst and I would hazard a guess that the income the official sites bring clubs per annum is less than one matchday takings so is it worth all the hassle and the negative publicity that it brings.
Even in the dark days of Lewis and Petty, they hated us, we know they did but they knew that they could do nothing about us. Alan's case may be slightly different but as a fan reading this I challenge you not to have a great deal of sympathy for him. A ban from the club he has supported all his life from a chairman that clearly doesn't have a www clue!
And to Mr Jenkins, if you are reading this, please don't even think about it ;-) | 
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