THE game's gone. Or has it?

Colchester United are treading a tricky tightrope between being football club innovators and keeping their fanbase onside by introducing an on-the-day touchscreen match ticket purchase machine.

We've not emulated edible coffee cups (Manchester City), Bovril ice-cream (recently seen at an England Wembley match), or sustainable material shirts (Forest Green), but from now on, ticketless folk will gain entry on U's game day via a hole in the wall.

Ouch. But does it matter? Well, yes, frankly. Perhaps the entire point of attending matches is to fraternise with some sporting kith and kin who are engrossed in achieving the same ambitions as you for a few intoxicating hours each week.

That includes seeing ticket sellers and not potentially arguing with a faceless façade designed to simply take your money and spit out a receipt. I like to collect physical stubs as mementos, and can't be the only one, so automation could work well, especially at busier times to beat the queues, but only if it falls within an authentic experience.

When we spot "Famous Phil" Gladwin before the match with his distinctive denims and Viking locks, or Shouty Man in the south doing jack-in-a-box tricks to challenge the referee it anchors our sense of well-being, punctuates the week.

Gazette:

The same goes for interacting with actual staff – they are an equal part of our extended football family, even if we may not know all their names.

At its core, this game is about people. They're the lifeblood. Paid employees also contribute towards the local economy, albeit a slightly moot point.

When did you ever see a concrete dispenser give captivating interviews about our latest last-minute heroics? It's not like you can ask an inanimate ATM to feature on one of those swish rags-to-riches BBC biopics.

The arrival of a stand-alone ticket machine would not normally be a bad thing, but in my opinion, this coincides with an erosion of so much that makes our matchday special: lapsed mascot Eddie the Eagle is mostly MIA, while the stadium's centre screen just shows a black blank.

I'll declare an interest here: I've sold club programmes and prize draw lottery concessions at games for many years, but that's another facet to simply disappear almost without trace.

In my opinion, it's giving the club an image problem and I'm not alone in noticing. Even away fans, according to the hosts of that entertaining Views On the U's podcast, struggle to understand an online-only, bubble-based ticket booking system, hear how things are being done along the A12, and either don't attend, or do and (exact words) "feel sorry for us". It doesn't have to be this way.

Gazette:

Up the U's - Matt Calmus with Colchester United legend Karl Duguid

In my view, there's some post-lockdown stiffness in the bones of our pro-supporter PR marketing arm and that needs to change. Marginal gains should happen off-pitch, as well as on.

Forgive a cynical first-look reaction to the installation of our ticket bot, but it's about so much more. Innovate away; we're in 2021, after all. Just tread that highwire of hardline pioneering cautiously and softly, please, because, as the WB Yeats poem says, you tread on my dreams.