Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Friday 7 December 2007
7 December 2007
The way, it seems to your Guest Diarist, to get some financial truths out of Town's chairman and self-crowned emperor is to rile him with personal slurs. As yesterday's Diary reported, Mr Fenty blurted out how many spondulies we are short of realising the Fentydome pipedream after folk made not-so-veiled accusations about his personal motives. When I was a kid and they were four for a penny then it would be a mere 2,400,000,000 black jacks needed to eliminate the funding gap. So if every Town fan donated one black jack per game we would have enough sweets to swap for a new stadium after about 800,000 home games. Unless we get a really good cup run, that is (we have stay positive - it's the law). Hang on though - I bet you don't get four for a penny these days, do you? And then could we get full retail value for them all - or would we simply flood the market with black jacks and, er, devalue the product?
Mr Fenty should have gritted his teeth and kept his mouth shut. He should also have kept quiet when he blurted out a few weeks ago that the projected Town P&L this season was wonky to the tune of £250,000 or so. It's bad enough writing off a comparatively huge amount spent on planning the stadium and spending more on wages than the club can afford. But telling us about it in a mighty fit of pique and without a word of explanation as to what the 'board' are doing to rectify matters makes those of us who knew it all along feel both absurdly triumphalist and deeply suicidal. The rest of us just feel suicidal. But, of course, it's all our fault because we don't make sure that at least fifty per cent of our incomings get channelled straight to the club. Sod the mortgage and the 'leccy and the gas bill (that's about to go up another twelve per cent) - let's bid that rare red shirt right up.
You, gentle reader, will almost certainly know that I never bought in to the idea of Town leaving the town. The Fentydome design makes me groan at the prospect of a half-finished modern shed in the middle of nowhere. But here we are, nearly in 2008, without even the prospect of a start in the near future, and still apparently clinging on to the nearly ten-year-old design concept. Eventual capacity 20,100 (to meet a rumoured - but never substantiated as far as I know - Premier League regulation that clubs won't get promoted unless they have a minimum capacity at their stadium). Developed when we were a second-flight club. Now we are at the bottom of the fourth division and home league crowds are about to dip below 3,000. It's too big, too dear and in the wrong place. Forget it, and concentrate on the league, man.
"I never done good things/I never done bad things/I never did anything out of the blue, woh-o-oh." OK, Lord Buckley has never said "who-o-oh" in his life; I admit it. And he hasn't been to many modern management training sessions either, given the three options he has identified to deal with his recalcitrant players (as outlined in his weekly chat to Dale on Mariners World). These, he tells us, are:
- cane 'em
- put his arm around 'em
- line them up against a wall and shoot 'em
Bolland needs one more match to get fit enough to start imposing himself again; Jones is still sick; Butler is completely short of match fitness after his hamstring injury and Whittle's ankle is still sore after training. Town need these four players fit and bursting to go. Till is ill (you know I can't resist 'em) and Hunt was "ill" the day after his flouncing exercise, although he came back to training yesterday, I'm told. Newey, of course, is suspended for tomorrow's game. And then there is the mysterious case of Bennett's ear. So the available squad is thin to say the least. But Brentford are on a bad run and are conceding goals, so we might scramble a point, and let's hope for everybody's sake that we do. Somehow.
As for formation - take Bowie's advice, mate, and revert to 4-4-2 before we start hitting an all-time low. See yer.