A QUICK look at the branding on the Motherwell season tickets this year will let you know that the Fir Park club have a renewed determination to reconnect with their roots.

"Made in Motherwell" was the message they took to the local community, with the steel and the long-gone billowing towers of Ravenscraig represented in the logo splashed across the front of the books.

They were rewarded with a 20 per cent uplift in sales, with junior season tickets up by a whopping 40 per cent alone.

But it is not only the club's off-the-field staff who have been engaging in a spot of introspection, and mulling over what it means to be part of Motherwell.

There is no one who is better placed to answer that question than Keith Lasley, now the assistant manager after a 16-year playing career at Fir Park.

He has witnessed a growing gap between the fans in the stands and the team on the park over the years, as the club have struggled to maintain their identity and place in the town.

Now, with the 'Well Society as majority shareholders, he sees the bond between the community and the club being strengthened.

But the team in claret and amber also need to reflect the area in which they reside, and Lasley has resolved that each week the 11 men on the park will have the togetherness, grittiness and determination the supporters can not only identify with, but throw their weight behind.

In short, he wants to put the steel back in the Steelmen.

“We have to be together no matter what, the players, the staff, the fans, the whole club,” Lasley told Sport Times.

“With everything going on around the club with fan ownership, that is the way for our club to move forward in the short, medium and long term.

“To me, that’s the way it should be. That’s what a football club should be, a two-way thing. We’re trying to provide something out on the pitch that the fans can be proud of, that they can be a part of.

“With the 'Well Society, they quite literally are a part of it. We’re all in this together.

“The fans give us their backing, they do their bit from the stand, and we hopefully do our bit by giving them performances back that they can be proud of.

“We want them to see a real honesty and a desire, all the things that they show on a weekly basis supporting the team we’ve got to give them back on the playing side.

“The more we can do that with performances like the one up at Ross County, that can only make that bond stronger.

“That is the only way forward for us, and the only way for our club to be successful. It’s up to the players and the staff to continually work on that and continually build that connection between ourselves and our supporters.”

Lasley knows the most obvious step to bringing the supporters closer to the team is to win games, and he feels that by crafting a tightly-knit group of players, Motherwell can bridge the gap with teams who have larger budgets in the Premiership.

“Being together, 100 per cent, is going to be massive for us,” he said. “It’s a big message we’re giving to the players and encouraging within the group.

“At our club, that is when we’re at our best. When I think back to the teams I played in myself, the successful ones were the ones who had that real unity.

“At times, it is used as a cliché, but when you really experience that tangible feeling of a togetherness, for smaller clubs like ourselves that can be the difference between being a bottom six side and a top six side.

“That’s where we can hopefully narrow that gap and compete with the teams who undoubtedly have far more resources than us and can pay far bigger salaries than us.

“We’ve got to bridge that gap in other ways, and getting the absolute best out of our players is the way to do that, but also in believing that the sum of the players is the greatest thing.

“I think the players have displayed that so far, and it’s something we’ll continually bang the drum about.”