Cod Almighty | Diary
Count your blessings!
12 October 2021
Trentside Diary writes: What a week! Just when I was looking forward to getting back to football the car decides it's not playing ball anymore. The local dealer said they could look at it in five weeks. Five weeks? How many games will I miss in that time? Bloody hell. A bit of a ring round and it's gone to Chancy Charlie's Car Repairs. Fingers-crossed for a speedy return but that's Bromsgrove a write-off. How frustrating when it's not far from me; at least I can watch it on the telly.
After a few Tuesday games already this season, tonight feels fallow. I had a quick look just to make sure I hadn't missed anything and noticed there are Football League Trophy games tonight. That trophy with B teams and all the ridiculous rules about who you are allowed to field. Only applied if you're from the lower leagues with a legitimate team and not just sending in the youngsters to give them a game. It's a definite tick in the benefits of being in non-League column.
It seems ridiculous that this format has been running for five years now and clubs are still beating their record lowest attendances. 689 for Charlton Athletic last week. Charlton in the third tier. The manager of Oxford United was suggesting giving away huge numbers of tickets and starting early to allow younger children to attend. It shows a lack of understanding on his part if he doesn't acknowledge that many fans are boycotting the format. We’re well out of it.
The BBC are running the story about Russell Slade and his campaign to get compensation for footballers for the use of data about them. I agree in principle in having to consent to how your data is used. Ultimately though, I can see clubs just adding a clause into a player's contract to give the club "ownership" of the data while they are signed to them in the same way that many other industries work. Any money flying around might well end up with the club. For many of us, if we're asked to do something because we're an expert in that field, anything extra we earn or anything we develop belongs to our employer.
The article did get me thinking about what stats we would find if we looked at Russ. The 2017-18 season shows about a point per match. Add to that the awful hoofball we played in that period and it's not a pretty picture. No wonder he’s keen to control his data. It seems like a lifetime ago.
Not sitting on their laurels, the club are looking at new training facilities within the Town which would be an asset for the community plus possible changes at the ground to increase capacity. Wow, we wouldn't have needed that if there hadn't been changes.
A note to a few: don't go on the pitch kids, it just causes grief for the club.
We're in a good place, we have great owners. Let's count our blessings.
UTM.