Cod Almighty | Article

by Dave Chambers

4 March 2005

Another week lurches by and there's still no end to the ban Town chairman John Fenty has imposed on Radio Humberside after their coverage surrounding the Keep The Mariners Afloat campaign. You know the ban: the one that stops Radio Humberside from interviewing any of the club's staff, while still allowing the Radio Humbs team to commentate on the matches (a convenient exception given that the club broadcasts that commentary on its Mariners World website).

Undeniably, the local BBC station has its detractors. Usually the target is the station's perceived Hull-centred bias in its news and live coverage. At other times it is the quality of the commentaries that is the issue. Some of the criticism may be fair. Copping the brunt of the flak is usually the station's sport editor David Burns, the man whose comments slyly suggesting John Fenty is "a multi-millionaire" seem to have inflamed the Town chairman.

Burns is accused on occasions of shooting from the hip - much like a tabloid hack - to provoke a reaction. Is there anything wrong with that? After all, Town fans have often complained about the apathy of the rest of Grimsby towards the club. Does that feeling exist throughout a large section of the area Radio Humbs broadcasts to, and Burns is just stoking the flames on air?

Or is it just that on this occasion Burns has let his feelings as a Town fan come to the fore and his passion has got the better of him? Is he is as frustrated as many other fans are? Were Burns's comments as "destructive and negative" as suggested by Fenty's counter-statement and the resultant ban? Quite possibly not. If anything, Burns has just asked some difficult questions - questions Fenty should have been prepared to answer - and given Fenty some resistance and a taste of the kick of dirt in the mouth that Town fans have had to endure over the past few seasons.

Worse, though, regardless of what Burns intended with his remarks, is that Fenty has bitten the bait.

Since the launch of the Keep The Mariners Afloat campaign Fenty has maintained the line that the tax bill shouldn't be such a surprise to fans. I can even quote him on that: "It should be no surprise that we have this tax debt," Fenty said upon the launch of the appeal, drawing reference to apparent comments he made in the summer when Russell Slade was appointed.

Can't remember this? Three months after Slade's appointment, Fenty told Radio Humberside - prompted by the Electronic Fishcake's determined insistence that the bill existed - that the club's finances were difficult but that the board was "managing the problem". He elaborated: "Now we're very very happy on where we're going on this in that we've got improved gate receipts, we've got substantial improved commercial income and in total we're very very happy that we can solve the problem that we're talking about when I first took over."

Unless Fenty and the board had planned KTMA all along, something clearly went amiss after the chairman's earlier statements. A month ago, long after the team promised much with a stirring start to the season (how long ago does the 5-1 mauling of Bury seem now?), the situation was thus: "When I took over as chairman, I did address finance in that I explained that after successive relegations, and against the backdrop of losing the ITV money, that the club's finances were and remain difficult. Additional to the board's financial support to the football club, further debts into the season would have to be met, and our objective was to pay these or deal with these problems through improved footballing performance."

Fenty has pointed the finger of blame at contracts awarded under Bryan Huxford on the basis of cash promised from the ITV Digital deal. "Clearly [Huxford] did raise the profile of the club," said the current chairman, "but at the same time he did spend an awful lot of money - leading to some of the financial problems that we have today." But Bryan Huxford alone cannot be blamed for the club's failure to pay its taxes - a legal requirement for any company trading in the UK. Who made this decision to renege on paying the taxes? How can the people who run the club's accounts have avoided it? And the current board must have survivors from the board Huxford served. Somebody has decided to pass on paying tax in order to fund other outgoings.

Shareholders with knowledge of commercial accounting who have analysed the club's past three financial statements saw a gaping hole in the finances - a problem that wasn't picked up by the ordinary fans. But the ordinary fans - the people who attend games and provide the club with its turnover at every home game - deserve an answer. The leap of faith required for Town fans to back this campaign has been immense, and while many dream of Fenty acting like a sugar daddy and pumping his fortune into the club, the fans also realise this isn't going to happen.

Has the club enlisted the supporters' trust mindful that supporters will be suspicious of the club asking for yet more money, especially given the poor return over the past few seasons? A membership of just over 250 suggests Town supporters aren't even sure about a supporters' trust. And with the trust now 'saddling up' with the club, will that figure sneak any higher? Town supporters are a cynical bunch (is it a coincidence that the trust seems to come into existence at a time when this problem might just about have been forecast?), feeling mainly that they've been screwed over and bled dry over recent years.

Yes, we've enjoyed highs in that time, but Fenty's statement about the debt was like being told by your better half that they've spent the past few years putting off paying off a maxed-out credit card in the hope that a surprising windfall will fall into their lap out of nowhere and free them from the burden. But now they've realised that they aren't going to win that lottery rollover and they're not going to be let off the debt they've built up. It needs paying off and the only people who can do that are those closest to you, no matter how much it hurts them.

As chairman of the club, Fenty must be allowed the courage of his convictions. But dishing out a draconian and dictatorial ban to a news service that keeps the club's flickering profile in the local media? Almost the reaction of a man who has never in his life been criticised. Nowhere is this more evident than with Fenty's remarks on the issue to Paul Thundercliffe elsewhere on this website. And the chairman had already displayed an inability to take criticism in the statement he issued shortly after the tax debt was revealed. "You do have a right to voice your opinions, but if you have nothing positive to say don't say it at all. That would help." Chairman Fenty should become more thick-skinned. Sure, he's more or less bankrolled the club over however long, but to instantly dismiss those who don't toe his line?

"The club trusts that Mariners' fans agree with them on [the Humberside ban] and that supporters will understand the club's stance," stated GTFC. The club then posted a selection of feedback from fans on the official site. Only one of the six responses voiced disappointment at the club's decision. Since then, however, it has become is clear that the majority of fans disagree on the club on this decision. Does the club distrust its own fans?

Back in the summer, furthermore, Fenty remarked: "We can't control what the media is saying on our behalf. We are occasionally disappointed... on how things are portrayed in the press. We continually try to improve our relationship with the local media and I think we have achieved that of late. We believe that the press has been substantially better over the last two, three months. This is something that we will have to continually work on, and to try and improve matters at the club so that they can be reported in a more favourable light." Usually the press portrays things because that is how they are. The only people who can change that perception are at the club. And the time to start is now, before it is too late.

Over the past few years I have gone 'that extra mile' for Town. I've bought the new mug even though my cupboard is full. I've bought the programme on match days even though I only occasionally peer at the back covers when I wonder who the latest in a long line of wingers who can skin our full-backs are. "It's all money to the club," I used to tell myself. All money into a bottomless pit, a pit that seems as destined for closure as a coalmine. I've turned down opportunities to keep the warm company of friends, opting to spend a touch over two and a half hours on the motorway one way to Grimsby, undergo whatever passes for football at Blundell Park these days, and endure the sleepy drive back along the M180, the dulling sounds of the Radio Humberside phone-in broken by the post-match interviews with the Town players. It is then that the relationship between the player and the fan is at its most fragile and yet its strongest, as the supporter listens to the voice of a player who has given his all, who genuinely sounds affected by the result.

The thing is that for those who are still talking about the club and have a semblance of interest in the remainder of the season, the outcome of this ban is probably the only interesting aspect remaining in what has turned out to be an uninspired and ultimately unimpressive and underwhelming season. Despite the chairman's assertions that his ambitions for this season were limited to 'stability', Town have found something off the pitch to distract from the lack of action on it.

And yet despite all this, for every home game I cannot make I am going to put the money for the ticket, the half-time prize draw, the programme, the pie and whatever else into a pot and give it to the KTMA fund. Faced with extinction, the club and its chairman have got the fans by the balls. And they know it.