What is your dream job in IT? Few people in any walk of life are fortunate enough to find the perfect role, but Ken Webster might just be one of them.

A born and bred Scouser, a season ticket holder at Liverpool Football Club for many years, and a supporter since the 1950s, Webster has found his calling as the IT manager for the Premiership and European heavyweights.

‘From the perspective of being a fan it is fantastic. I have been here eight or nine years, and I still come in most days with a sense of wonderment,’ he says.

‘The football is obviously what drives us, and football is a passionate business, so most of the people in the club are very passionate about working here. The commitment is unbelievable, we have an incredibly low rate of staff turnover.

‘But we have a big operation to run, it is a complex business, and we cannot lose sight of the fact this is a big commercial operation as well as being here to win football matches.’

Times have changed on and off the pitch since Webster signed for Liverpool.

‘When I first came here, there was a single PC at the training ground, which was for the manager’s secretary,’ he says.

‘Now it is a multi-site operation. It is not just the Anfield stadium – we have seven sites, including the training ground, the Academy, shops in the city centre and Chester, the warehouse, and that is all part of an integral network.’

Talk to any employee – or fan – of the club, and they will agree that the business of Liverpool is winning football matches. But to do that profitably – an increasingly important factor in the high-stakes game that football has become – requires a well thought-out IT strategy.

‘We have to win games, because that is the front end of the business,’ says Webster. ‘But we have a massive retail and merchandising operation, a huge membership operation, conferencing and banqueting, museums and tours – we now consistently beat the Beatles Museum in terms of visitors. There are business plans, targets are set, and they have to be maintained.’

The key IT system is ticketing and stadium access. Webster says Liverpool’s history means the club is more sensitive to ground safety than most, as a result of the 1989 Hillsborough stadium disaster when 96 Liverpool fans died as a result of crowd congestion.

‘The key thing is the ability to get people into the ground legitimately, quickly and safely. We have a first-class ticketing and smartcard entry system that we developed with our supplier Fortress, which is working very well,’ he says.

Liverpool’s corporate network is part of ITV’s national infrastructure, as a result of the broadcaster purchasing shares in the club several years ago – although these have recently been sold to the club’s new US owners. The Liverpoolfc.tv web site – the biggest single-club football site in the world – is run by a 50/50 joint venture company, also with ITV.

In other areas, the aim of the IT strategy is to be innovative – but not too innovative. ‘We do not believe in technology for the sake of technology, we always look to see if somebody else is doing something first,’ says Webster. ‘We are not trailblazers. In the end, football is the key driver, and if a football match does not take place we are in big trouble.’

Recent IT initiatives include installing Citrix thin-client systems, and a move to hosted online backup and restore of data, using Asigra software provided by supplier Backup Technology.

‘We have multiple servers and different operating systems; it was a pain to manage backups if something went wrong and we needed to restore data. I’m not talking about major disasters, it is individual things such as people making mistakes or an upgrade not working out. For some time we had been wondering how to get that off our backs. But now we are restoring things we just couldn’t do before, it is so easy to do,’ says Webster.

Liverpool are starting construction of a new 61,000-seater stadium, just a few hundred yards from the existing Anfield ground. Webster and his team have been involved in IT planning since the site was first discussed.

‘We are faced with massive challenges and issues,’ says Webster.

‘Do we look at a cashless stadium? How far do we go with WiFi technology? We are already heavily involved with smartcard access, but in a couple of years’ time will the card be redundant because you are looking at barcodes on mobile phones? We are very keen on that type of technology because our big battle is against ticket touting.

‘Every system we want to use in the new stadium, within reason, we want to be already using here at Anfield, so the shock of the move is less.

‘We are committed to moving to total smartcard access. We have done away completely with season ticket books and all that paraphernalia.

‘Next season we hope to have 90 per cent of the stadium on card access. The paper ticket will probably be something you only sell as souvenirs.’

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Click here to listen to a podcast interview with Liverpool FC IT manager Ken Webster