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Diary - Wednesday 28 May 2008

28 May 2008

Family values. Nobody really knows what it means, but we all purr appreciatively like brainwashed idiots every time the phrase is reeled off reassuringly by adverts for the Daily Express and public school-educated Tory politicians. One Tory politician prepared to put his money where his mouth is, however, is GTFC chairman John Fenty (Con), who has announced not only that adult season ticket prices at Blundell Park will be frozen for a second consecutive year but that under-15s can effectively get in for just £20 for the entirety of the 2007-08 campaign. There are some conditions about they have to be accompanied by adults and stuff, which seems to disadvantage the large numbers of early teen kids who quite understandably prefer to go to matches with each other than their mums and dads, but as season ticket incentives go this one looks considerably healthier than a voucher to pick up discount skin cancer at a tanning salon round the back of Riby Square.

Not that Fenty and his minions necessarily merit unequivocal praise on the issue of season ticket pricing and special offers. A few months ago the Mariners' right-wing supremo was asked whether he'd considered a price-slashing exercise of the kind that made Bradford City far and away the best supported team in the fourth division last season. Fenty responded: "When Bradford played here, we spoke with the vice chairman and he said he didn't think the massive reductions was a good idea in the long run. Their gates have dwindled now and they may have problems ahead." In fact their gates did nothing of the sort, and whatever problems they may have had ahead don't seem to have deterred the Bantams from extending their £150 season ticket offer to a second year.

Another announcement on the Mariners' superb new official website proudly informs us that the club can look forward to a brighter future having now "budgeted for the final payments of the £700,000 debt owed to HM Inland Revenue". It's a well-argued and outspoken piece, fired by JF(C)'s righteous anger at both Carlton and Granada TV, who plunged GTFC into financial chaos by welching on their broadcast rights contract with the Football League, and the "easy option" taken by other clubs that have entered administration to "dodge their obligations" to the Exchequer. Only the worst kind of pedant would draw attention to the continuous references to the Inland Revenue and mention that, although the term is still used within HM Revenue & Customs, the latter assumed responsibility for tariffs and taxation in April 2005 when the Inland Revenue effectively ceased to exist.

"I'm not the Mat from London mentioned in the Diary the other day," begins an email to the Diary from someone called Mat (I think it's Mat Hare), referring back to the messageboard nesbit quoted here last Thursday. "I don't think Lord Alan Buckley is on a one-man mission to destroy the club. I think that's Fenty's job at the mo. Anyway. The new youth players. Now, you know how the natives like to pluralise players' names incorrectly. Well, in that case we will soon have Bradley Woods in the youth team. Is this a new GTFC policy, to try and sign up players with the same name as local areas? Can we expect a lad called Humber Stone to appear in a few years? Grant Thorold perhaps? Maybe Bradley has a brother/cousin called Wybers. On second thoughts I'm being silly now - Wybers is quite clearly a girl's name." And it's a shame Rodney Marsh didn't have twin sons called East and West.