The fan profile today is unusual in that it features the man who usually subjects our management, players, and fellow fans to a light-hearted cross-examination, namely Jonathan Ervine. The pleasure of setting the questions fell to Dafydd Hughes, who likens the experience to interviewing a poacher turned gamekeeper! Seriously though, Jonathan has played a key role behind the scenes at 1876 and is an excellent ambassador for the Club.

As a native of Fife, where did your football allegiance lie when you were growing up, and were there any early football heroes and influences?

Although both of the Dundee teams’ grounds are visible from my parents’ house, Celtic has always been my team in Scotland. A lot of my friends at school got excited about Dundee United reaching the 1988 Scottish Cup Final, which was one of the first matches I remember watching. I wasn’t all that into football at the time and I think I just decided to support Celtic because they won that game and I’ve stuck with them. In the years that I’ve followed Celtic, Henrik Larsson stands out as the best player I’ve seen. He scored crucial goals in so many big matches - both in domestic and European games - and rarely needed more than half a chance to find the net.

When you first appeared on the football scene in Bangor, you were known for your acerbic wit on the terraces with linesmen often the subject of your comments. You now spend most Saturdays when 1876 are playing running the line. What’s it like to be on the receiving end?

To be fair, there have only been a few games this season where I’ve had a fair amount of stick from opposition fans. There was actually one game where a spectator offered to lend me a pair of gloves, which I guess is a lot kinder than offering to lend me a pair of glasses or recommending a local optician. Running the line means concentrating on the game in a different way, especially with trying to keep level with where the second last player of the defending team is when the ball is at the other end.

Is there any truth that, during the enforced break, you have taken the first steps to qualify as a referee?

I decided to do the FAW’s initial Referee Leaders Award initially out of interest as much as anything, and because there was a special offer on. After completing that, I thought I may as well have a go at the Advanced Referee Award. I’ve passed the test associated with that and now need to attend a final face-to-face session when the sort of thing is taking place again. I think doing these courses is partially a consequence of being involved with a fan-owned team and wanting to try to give something back to football.

Your academic interest in the role played by football in French popular culture has led to your participation in the Football Collective. Can you tell us about the Collective and a little about its interest in fan-owned football clubs such as our own.

The Football Collective is a network of people who do research on football, and I’ve attended their last three annual conferences in Sheffield, Glasgow and Limerick. It’s been great to have the opportunity to meet people from different places who have such a range of perspectives on football. At the conferences, I’ve learned quite a lot about fan-owned football, and this has helped to create a few links that I hope will be useful to us as a club. I’m very grateful to Richard Irving from the Football Supporters Association, who I met at the 2018 conference at Hampden Park, for the help that he and his colleagues have provided us here at Bangor 1876. I’ve certainly been telling plenty of people in the Football Collective about Bangor 1876, and they’re delighted to hear about how our first season has been going.

This season, our web-site has become one of the most popular football sites on Pitchero, regularly featuring in the top 20 and spending several weeks in the top 10. Our ranking is based on the popularity of the site but also the amount of content published. You lead the team overseeing the website, how would you describe your approach?

First of all, I think that the number of people viewing our website is a reflection of the real interest in Bangor 1876 from the local community and beyond. It’s been a pleasure to play a role in reporting on so many positive stories about what’s been happening on the pitch and in terms of what our club has been doing in the local community. As we’re a fan-owned club, we try to make sure that we have regular features on our website that are fan-focused and feature contributions from our supporters. It’s been great to have lots of supporters sending in their match pictures for our ‘Fan Photos Friday’ feature and participating in our ‘Fan Focus Friday’ interviews.

We exist due to fans coming together with a common purpose, and that’s something really powerful. It’s great to have quite a few different people contributing to the website, and I really value their input. This very much includes regular contributors such as Dafydd Hughes and Matt Johnson, as well as people such as Aled Hughes, Sean Williams and Meilyr Williams who have done a great job of filming and editing match footage. The fact that so many people - fans, players and officials - have really bought into what this fan-owned and community focused club is about is absolutely fantastic

We’re very much open to feedback and suggestions, and would be delighted to hear from 1876 fans who have ideas about things they’d like to see on our website or who would like to write for the website. If anyone would be about a particular game, the season in general, or what they feel the club represents from their perspective, then we’d love to hear from them.

Being a family man, a keen member of the 1876 Board, and a busy academic, it is a wonder that you have any time for running. Is this a relatively new interest? What motivates you to put in the miles?

I first got into running back in 2003 when I was living in France and went to see a friend run a half marathon. Within a year, I’d run my first half marathon and was really enjoying it. I kept going for quite a few years, but found it harder to fit it in after I moved to the Bangor area in 2007 and started my job as a lecturer in French at the university. Back in 2017, I decided that I really needed to be getting more exercise and running seemed the natural thing to do given how much I’d enjoyed it in the past. I joined Eryri Harriers, which is a fantastic local running club. At the start of 2018, I set myself the challenge of doing my first marathon before turning 40 last year. I managed to complete the Chester Marathon in 2018 and 2019, which was a really rewarding experience. A lot of the time, I manage to fit in running by getting up early and heading out before breakfast so I can get a run in before work. I’m currently taking part in the Lily Foundation fundraiser organised by Paul Templer that will involve running the marathon distance in a next week.