Cod Almighty | Diary

The comma butterfly is fairly rare in most of Lincs

3 July 2017

Irregular Diary writes: The Football Supporters' Federation (FSF) and Supporters Direct (SD) had their annual conference at St George's Park on the weekend just gone. Any old random soul like me can register online and turn up. Even paying is a choice rather than a necessity, which, considering the amount of work that seemed to have gone into it, I found a little baffling!

St George's Park is something else; the drive from the B road to the Hilton hotel where the conference was took an age. The winding road took you through green fields and a herd of cattle before, in the distance, you saw the first of many Astroturf pitches.

Walking into these things is always daunting. You don't really know anybody, and do you want people to know you're from Grimsby? As it turns out, you have a name badge telling everybody who you are and where you're from so you spend half an hour staring at people's lanyards wondering who to talk to and who to avoid. Everybody was friendly enough and had a tale or antidote about the Mariners or Blundell Park – the most frequently used word was 'cold'.

There were a couple of trade stands; one for Women in Football was the busiest. As most will know from the piece I wrote for CA on International Women's Day, I speak very highly of the ladies associated with GTFC – but then I always wonder if we, the club, the sport as a whole, could do more to entice. I don't mean down the road of pink frills and bows but just something. WIF obviously thinks the same and pins some hesitancy on the perception people have of the unknown – for some, even a turnstile and not knowing what is on the other side are a huge barrier. Thinking cap on for this one…

Opening plenaries (yes, I had to Google that) were on crisis clubs with Coventry City, Blackpool and Leyton Orient fans as panellists – I saw the Slades link too. I sat there listening with half of me thinking thank God that's not us and the other half thinking that could be us at any time. As a side note, it's great to see the Os finally getting rid of Becchetti and being taken over by a lifelong fan. It's testament to the optimism around the place that staff who left at the end of last season are now returning to the club. I wish them nothing but luck for next season.

The main topic of conversation was beer – why in every other sport, even in a football stadium, can you drink beer at your seat but you can't at football?

For the morning session I plumped for 'Structured Dialogue'. Here we discovered that a new rule (rule 111, to be exact) will effectively force clubs to actually interact with fans at least twice a year. GTFC did this twice with a 'non-football' and a football forum. That format is OK, but it never really solves anything with no resolutions in place going forward.

For me the rule needs tweaking and tightening to ensure that those who can make decisions within a club have to meet a focus group of fans who represent a cross-section of the fanbase. That way issues aren't diluted or brushed away. Remains to be seen what the Football League does, if anything, to take this forward.

For the afternoon session I went for 'Watching Football is Not a Crime'. A panel of four experts (from West Midlands Police, the Football League, UK Football Policing Unit and Amanda Jacks from FSF) were ready to be grilled, and grilled they were. I do have some unhappiness with the police and the way football fans are treated, and this goes for the football-specific laws too. So it was nice to hear that West Midlands Police were listening to fans and their derby will be policed differently from next season.

The main topic of conversation was beer, though – why in every other sport, even in a football stadium, can you drink beer at your seat but you can't at football? It's legislation that dates back to the earlier 1990s and – it's part of the reason why some fans down as much beer as they can before they go into a ground, especially on away days. Don't get it, never will. You wait 45 minutes for the kiosk to open, you wait another 10 minutes for a crap warm pint of Carlsberg, being charged £4 for the privilege, to then lob it in the air? Nah. In my day beer was for drinking and you didn't spill a drop even if you fell over!

There was a chink of light though, guys: it's being looked at, and with fewer convictions and banning orders for drink-related offences around football, let's hope common sense resumes soon and the lobbing of beer at half time stops.

Sadly, it's unlikely the dry train scenario will end: non-football people are terrified of football people, which is often stoked by the rail companies themselves. To quickly prove the point, up north an international rugby match was on and the train was packed, the beer flowed and passengers were encouraged to join in with the rugby lot in a sing-song. Meanwhile in London before a football game, there was no alcohol to be had and warnings all over stations about the loud football fans.

I do hope the tide is turning in not treating everybody as a potential football hooligan on the basis that 0.05 per cent of those like to make a bit of an idiot of themselves. Anyway, I think I've waffled on enough for today. We kick off pre-season tomorrow at the Bradley against Clee Town, where it's entirely possibly you'll know more Owls players than Mariners – enjoy!

UTM