Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Tuesday 7 May 2013

7 May 2013

Last week, your Middle-Aged Diary waffled on about various things, which I came to summarise with the line "Respecting other teams does not make you less of a Town fan". Quite a few people were kind enough to respond positively, so, with apologies, and in the absence of too much hard news (although the club's request for suggestions to commemorate Kevin Moore deserves highlighting), I'm going to carry on in the same vein (but I promise to get down from the pulpit next week).

Respecting other teams makes you more of a Town fan. It is pitching it too strong to say that respect for the league we are in is a necessary condition for achieving promotion. The experience of Crawley and Fleetwood demonstrates that you can buy your way out of the Conference, but you leave with the contempt of your peers. What is most valuable about a club is sacrificed for short-term success, endangering its long-term survival. A risk you are prepared to take? Ask a Rushden Town or Irthlingborough Diamonds supporter how that can turn out; where are Ru$hden & Diamonds now? Besides, the cut to the Mariners' budget evidenced by the players released last week makes it clear that this is not a model available to us.

Clubs like Wimbledon have been promoted with everyone's best wishes and many former League clubs like Torquay and York have returned to the fourth flight stronger for their experience of the fifth. Arguably one or two clubs continue to "languish" in the Conference, convinced that somehow they are too big for this stage, asleep in a dream of paranoia in which everyone but themselves is responsible for their decline. That is no nightmare: it is a daydream putting off the moment you have to wake up and start to put things right.

We are in better shape than we were three years ago. We have the core of a playing squad which, more often than not, rolls up its sleeves and plays, no matter the state of the pitch or the emptiness of the stands. We have supporters who are supportive, especially away from Blundell Park. Paradoxically, even the release of players last week is a sign of a club planning to live by its means.

But then there is still work to do. If our major shareholder feels that his visitors to the directors box need lessons in etiquette, and the best way to teach that etiquette is to "deconstruct" a flag, there is still work to do. If we have supporters who, 20 minutes into a home match against a team of part-time players start grumbling because we haven't scored yet, there is work still to do. If, every time a refereeing or administrative ruling goes against us, we mutter about a "tinpot league", there is work still to do. And if we have one supporter who assaults a young, locally born striker for not getting us promoted, there is work still do.

These are tenuous, but still tangible, ties between lack of respect and lack of success, perhaps not making it impossible but certainly making it harder for us to put things right. The more respect we show those around us, the easier we will find it to analyse how we can improve.