Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Wednesday 19 January 2005
19 January 2005
When times turn bad, your guest diarist is something of a creature of habit. All this talk of Town's big debts, mounting interest charges, and so on, has led me, unerringly, to the left hand side of the lower shelf of my vinyl collection where music, made for these times, is filed. To some, Patti Smith with the morning muesli is a bit much to take. That's why I had to pause it, and wait until they'd buggered off to work and school, before cranking it up to eleven. But pissing in a river is most definitely the track for today. I could write you a Nick Hornbyesque paragraph or two, to explain why, but, suffice to say, there's a song out there that provides an explanation for every tragedy; every emotion; every rock; every hard place. And this is my one for Town. I'd better disengage the auto-repeat button on the dansette now, and move on, leaving you, gentle reader, to decide whether to join me.
I keep re-reading the Fenty Q&A published by the Supporters Trust, as reported in yesterday's diary. Mr Fenty told them, apparently, that the Club is a community asset belonging to the public'. I hope the Inland Revenue take that view when they assess the public interest' factor in determining how to extract their pound of flesh: via a couple of murderous hacks without anaesthetic; or by a long series of liposuction procedures with lots of laughing gas to make it all seem rather painless and worthwhile. But whichever way, drain Town's cash the Inland Revenue will, because the debt is owed. And what goes around, comes around. With the benefit of twenty:twenty hindsight one can argue that costs should have been pruned more ruthlessly - that the squad should not have been supplemented by so many loan players over the last two seasons. Instead we could have thrown in to the first team inadequate and inexperienced squad players. Hell, we went down twice anyway, and the three or four thousand hard-core Town fans would watch almost any team wearing the Town strip, wouldn't they? But there's not much point in backwards looking recrimination. Not much point remembering Mr Furneaux telling us at one point something along the lines that the loss of the TV money was OK, because they had already taken it out of the budget. No, now is the time for us all to stop pissing at each other, and to start pissing in the river. Let's hope it rises quickly enough.
The board, small enough these days to travel together in an average family saloon, went to talk about their problems to that jolly council leader chap Mr de Freitas yesterday. Iron man' Chief Council Executive George Krawiec, the man the council is praying will stop them from being bullied by the audit commission for being totally crap at just about everything, tagged along. No doubt he said "Problems? I'll show you flipping problems!" They should have waited until Friday, and got Austin Mitchell in on it. At least he knows the art of seeking publicity, and how to laugh.
Back to the football I hear you plead. Well the Official Site has done a good job in finding out the reserves line up for their Pontins Holidays League Cup fixture at Hull this afternoon. Lots of the names on the teamsheet provoke a reaction of one sort or another: Fraser, Hyam, Downey, Lamb, Crane, Parker, Carchedi, Hildred, Lewsham, Sestanovich, Hockless. Subs: Mansaram, Ashton, Chamberlain, North. No doubt the Downey twitchers will be scurrying over the bridge desperate to be able to brag that they have seen this perverse figment of Russell Slade's imagination. Sestanovich has had his suspension doubled by the FA to four matches (as reported by BBC Humber). Presumably they really stuck the knife in by also insisting that one of them wasn't a stupid away reserve cup match in which he would be forced to play!
It's Lincoln at home this Saturday, and the Official Site, has wheeled out the talkative Mr Fenty to plead with fans to drag along everyone they know' to the match to swell what promises already to be a very decent crowd. Further down the piece it is explained that the average crowd this season thus far is 4,819. And that, if you take the Grimsby home game out of the Scunthorpe average, the Iron are only averaging 4,778. That brings to mind what dear old Groves said about Town having a decent run (if you take the two defeats out). It's going to be a cracking game, daft statistical manipulation notwithstanding, and I can't wait for it. Especially after the injustice of our last minute disallowed goal at the away match. The Grimsby Telegraph tells us that Russell Slade is bothered about Macca's knee. With Bull and Sestanovich suspended, and Crowe and Whittle definitely out through injury, he really needs the Maccmeister back in training by Thursday. Somehow, I think he will be - he wouldn't miss this one for the world. And neither would I. See yer.