Lincolnshire FA's County Cup Committee recently conducted a survey to obtain feedback from the spectators that attended our County Cup Finals in 2024.

The feedback will enable the committee to make improvements to enhance the experience of spectators in future finals. With the survey having now closed, we'd like to provide some answers to frequently raised issues to provide clarity and transparency ahead of the 2024/25 competitions. 

Please see some of the questions we asked, followed by frequent answers and our responses to them.

How could we improve your County Cup Final experience?

A: Having a proper ref and lines men that know what there doing and make the pitch better and have the pitch mark out better

All Referees appointed to County Cup Finals are those who the Lincolnshire Referees Committee feel have earned the accolade of officiating the respective games. This will include Referees who are in line for promotion at the end of the season, or are officiating at the standard of the competition final and are highly commended by League Fixture Secretaries and scoring. All Referees are, of course, fully qualified and are more than capable of officiating a County Cup Final.

As you can imagine, a lot of hard work goes in to securing suitable venues for the appropriate competitions finals. There are also a lot of different factors that have to be considered for the time of year the finals are played. These factors include venue availability, the location in relation to the two finalists, and the quality of the venue. We always ensure we secure the best possible venues for our finals, but are also roughly equal travel time for both teams. With Lincolnshire being such a large County, we don't feel it's fair to make teams - especially parents for youth finals - travel the length of Lincolnshire. We also have to consider the expected turnout for the competition and the appropriate venue for those numbers. For example, the County Senior Cup Final is traditionally the most attended fixture, and so a venue like Lincoln City would be appropriate. 

We also must consider venues availability in marking out the correct pitch sizes for respective age groups, hence sometimes this limits which venues we can book for Youth finals. All pitches are marked out to the correct FA regulation sizes as per the respective age groups. While some age groups play on larger pitches than they necessarily should, we as a County FA must adhere to the guidelines set out by The FA for pitch size. 

A: Allow spectators who have had a long day / week at work and made the effort to come and watch to enjoy a cold beer in the stands whilst watching. Arriving at the ground, no advice was given to us on this info there fore to finish our expensive round of beer we missed the kick off.

Whilst we appreciate and acknowledge we can communicate the expectations and regulations around the consumption of alcohol at County Cup Finals and the venues they are hosted at, we must adhere to The FA regulations on this matter. Alcohol is not permitted to be consumed in sight of the playing area and so must be consumed outside the ground or in the concourse, or respective bar area. Alcohol should not be sold at Youth competition finals. 

How could we improve the purchasing of tickets for County Cup Finals?

A: Why is it encouraged to purchase tickets in advance for Youth Finals? And why is there a charge on these when we don't usually have to pay to watch our kids play?

We put all County Cup Finals available for advanced ticket purchase for two main reasons. The first being so we can understand how much staff to allocate to the fixture for things like security, scanning tickets, catering, etc. Our priority is to ensure everyone has a safe and enjoyable evening, so advanced foresight of how many people plan to attend the event helps us cater for these requirements. 

There is a charge on tickets for Youth finals simply because of venue costs. We as a County FA are charged to use the venues that we do for our respective finals and while these costs vary from venue to venue, we have to ensure our overheads are covered. Anything made on top of these costs are then put back into the County Cup budget for the following season, which can include lowering ticket prices for the following season - like was done in 2023/24 - or having the availability to hire higher sought after venues. 

A: Why did the ticketing for the County Senior Cup Final this year change to advanced tickets only at the last minute?

This was unfortunately out of our control, and was imposed by the venue for the evening due to security purposes. Following one of our Finals that was hosted at the same venue a couple of weeks prior, in which we saw undesirable and antisocial behaviour that resulted in the venue damaged and a pitch invasion from a minority of spectators, the venue requested that tickets be made advanced tickets only so they could monitor the number of expected spectators and allocate the correct numbers of stewards for these numbers. 

We apologise for the inconvenience this caused, as we know many spectators would prefer to have paid on the day, but we must respect the request of the venue and ensure we maintain positive relationships so we can continue to use this stadium for future County Cup Finals. 

Any further recommendations or things you'd like to see in the future?

A: Allowing winners to have access to the trophy for parading at club events like Boston United celebration evening, or the option to keep trophy for season with agreement to pay for replacement if damaged.

We hugely appreciate that teams would love to be able to keep the County Cup trophies for a season, and can understand it may be disappointing to not have this opportunity. There is a reason we don't allow teams to take the trophies home, and the reason is because of the age and therefore value of the trophies. Some of the County Cup trophies are 100+ years old and are some of the oldest trophies in English football! Naturally, the insurance costs involved with these trophies are incredibly expensive and so to protect the trophies and also the winning clubs from having to pay for them should they become damaged, we award a plaque to the winners to take away with them. 

For those trophies that are not as old, we want to do everything we can to protect these for as long as we can, and hopefully in 100+ years time - these trophies will still be the ones won by future generations. 

We do acknowledge that a plaque is perhaps not as exciting or as attractive in a trophy cabinet, and so we are committing to reviewing what winning teams get to take away with them. Because of the age of the trophies, it's no longer possible to get replicas of the original awards, but we are looking into getting trophies of some variety produced each year for the winners to put in their cabinets. We hope that while it's not the perfect solution for clubs, it's a nice middle ground that we're able to come to.

A: Better parking facilities. When travelling over an hour to have to then find a parking space on the street was not good.

While we aim to secure venues that have appropriate parking facilities, it's not always possible when booking appropriate venues that are equal travel times for both sides. In the worst case scenario, there has been on-street parking available. While we appreciate this isn't ideal, we've done everything within our capabilities to ensure appropriate parking has been available.

If you have any further enquiries relating to County Cup competitions, please contact Stuart.Houlton@lincolnshirefa.com.

To be one of the first to receive the latest grassroots football news from Lincolnshire, and to receive exclusive offers and discounts from Lincolnshire FA partners – click here