Southampton Football Club supporters of a certain age say that the city came to a halt in 1976 when Saints famously defeated Manchester United in the FA Cup final. Nearly half a century later, nothing comes to a halt anymore, including the flow of data and threat of a cyberattack.
That’s why Southampton FC teamed up with local MSP Tailor Made Technologies and Acronis for data backup and cybersecurity. Data is critical to the club, just as it is to any modern sports organisation. Southampton FC tracks not just what’s happening on the pitch, but also important business metrics off the pitch.
“From a football perspective, data narrates and informs all of our big decisions,” says Huw Fielding, Director of IT for Southampton FC. “Outside of football, we operate a very busy enterprise covering many areas of business.”
Management of player data at an elite level
Southampton FC earned promotion to the Premier League in 2024 with a tense 1-0 win over Leeds United in the Championship playoff final. The club relies on data to run its football operation, Fielding says, including using critical information to decide which players to buy and sell.
Southampton FC also use data to manage fitness and recovery journeys for players and conduct performance analysis. The club uses information on player fitness not only to help players manage and recover from injuries but also to prevent players from suffering them.
“Data provides detailed information about our players, which can help inform injury recovery schedules,” Fielding says. “We use information we collect about players to help us predict the likelihood of an injury reoccurring and to prevent injuries from occurring from overexertion in the first place.”
Modern sports run on data, and football is a prime example. Players wear devices that can track their vital signs, including heart rate, during training and games. Player metrics on both health and performance are critical for the club’s manager and coaches, who make critical decisions around which players to start for a match, when to substitute a player during a game and who should replace him.
Using numbers to keep the fans happy
Of course, running a football club involves a lot more than managing the playing staff. Southampton FC’s stadium, St. Mary’s, isn’t just a football ground; it’s an entertainment venue. Every other week, more than 32,000 supporters attend a match there. A big part of the club’s job is keeping those fans happy regardless of the result of the match.
“We’re always looking to improve our match day offerings,” Fielding says. “We constantly review data to see where the biggest queues are for kiosks and how we can effectively reduce wait times and improve overall fan experience. We also analyse the performance of our retail store and event spaces, which we’re constantly trying to improve.”
The critical importance of data integrity
Data is, of course, critical in many kinds of organisations. But a data breach would be particularly damaging and embarrassing for a football club with a global profile and a major presence in the U.K.
“When you have constant events and a brand name that is frequently in the media, there is very little margin for error,” Fielding says.
Failure to recover from a breach or disaster could negatively affect not only the club’s revenues and relationship with fans, but also its performance on the pitch. In a dynamic sport, data protection and integrity are essential.
“All of the areas we track are constantly changing,” says Fielding. “We can’t make effective decisions with out-of-date information. We therefore have to ensure our data integrity. Only the relevant personnel can have access to the correct data at any time, whilst making sure it’s always accessible.”
A positive relationship: Southampton FC, Tailor Made Technologies and Acronis
Southampton FC rely on local MSP Tailor Made Technologies to back up and protect the club’s data using Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud. According to Fielding, this positive relationship “provides us with double the resources of a traditional supplier-customer scenario.” We have Tailor Made Technologies as local experts in the field supporting and helping our implementation, and we also have backing from Acronis. That combination takes away the stress and headaches of traditional security service implementations.”
The partnership grew out of a relationship between Acronis and Southampton FC to include Tailor Made Technologies, and it has delivered as the club hoped it would.
“It quickly became clear that the Acronis services would benefit us in the short term but also in the longer term,” Fielding says. “Having Tailor Made Technologies included in the partnership gives us a managed service, structured onboarding and ongoing technical support that reduces the resource commitment from ourselves! This is an ideal scenario and suits our use case perfectly.”
