Alan Liptrott

Who is Alan Liptrott?

Alan Liptrott is a retired telephone technician from Walderslade in Kent. He has for many years been a prominent supporter of Gillingham Football Club, having been heavily involved in the fund-raising campaign to keep the club afloat when it was forced into administration in the mid-1990s, and serving for a number of years as a committee member of the Gills Independent Supporters' Club. More recently he has become notable within the wider football world for a long-running and high-profile dispute with Gills chairman Paul Scally, which led Scally to hit Liptrott with a life ban from the club's Priestfield Stadium in 2001.

The full details of the dispute are unclear, but the most significant factor is believed to be Liptrott's ownership of the gillinghamfc.co.uk domain name, which Scally believed should belong to the club. There was for a number of years no sign that the dispute would end, despite an apparent offer of mediation from the chairman of The Football League, but on 8 February 2007, Scally unexpectedly lifted Liptrott's ban in a statement published on the official club website.