Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Wednesday 10 February 2010

10 February 2010

Idle Diary writes: It's a day full of news of other clubs and their money struggles.

David Conn - whose excellent intelligent journalism over recent years has single-handedly enlightened us into the business side of football (while making us feel like complete fuckwits for coughing up to fuel further businessman fuckwittery) - reports that since 1992 - the hallowed year zero for the Sky Sports generation - Football League clubs have fallen into insolvency 53 times. No side from the first division, the Premier League, has yet to be forced into administration.

As I type this, Sky Sports News are feverishly reporting from outside the court where Portsmouth, Cardiff, and Southend are all facing winding-up hearings. Portsmouth have already had one offer turned down this morning, and if they cannot prove they can pay back their creditors, they are in real danger of becoming the modern day's top flight's first, ahem, "victims". Victims. Victims of what exactly?

We won't draw reference to Manchester United that often in these pages, but more of their fans are starting to believe their club is a vehicle for profiteering by the Glazers. Cue protests, cue a steward being dismissed after returning a banner to protestors after a game. Passions running high at a club, lazily clichéd as being avast with prawn sandwich-eating fans. But were there any of these protests when the Glazers, with their reputation of doing just this, bought the club? There was little, concern and understanding of the action, the fans no doubt wooed by the promises of more $$$ to splash in the transfer market.

Closer to Town's ground level a similar situation arose at Notts County in the summer, the failure of their high-profile takeover now leaving the club stranded in confusion. Having recently agreed a 28 day extension to sort their tax bill, question marks now hang over who and where that money is coming from.

Derby County chairman Dam Longson says to Brian Clough in The Damned United, money is what chairmen want, and the more that comes in the better for them. An ex-chairman, Alan Sugar, believes football is too expensive for your average fan. This is Baron Sugar who was the only chairman of a (then) top five side to vote in favour of the Sky deal back in 1992. The same Sky deal that has had many clubs like Portsmouth and Hull overspending to reach the golden chalice of the Premier League, and asking the fans to pay more and more along the way. And that's the same Sky deal that fuelled the then-historic ITV Digital deal with the Football League in 2001, the same deal that fucked over so many clubs and left them on their knees. Oh, and did you know Spurs fans aren't keen on Sugar? Try asking one.

With that, for Town the links are closer to home. This weekend adult Town fans will pay twenty quid to get into a fourth division game at Bradford City, another club that chased the dream and fell. While Bradford were top flight hustlers and bustlers, think back to the last game of Alan Buckley's second spell in charge of Town in 2000. A well-earned point at Fratton Park wasn't enough for the Town board's fresh face, Doug Everitt. Enter Lennie Lawrence, enter ITV Digital, enter the start of Town's very modern modern history of problems. And Portsmouth then, they'd only been in administration 18 months previously.

There's no need to pontificate or force the relevance of this to Town down your throat. There are lessons here. But whether they are lessons fans and football learn from, is another matter. At least our club continues to exist. It's a miserable existence, it's a perilous existence, but at least Fenty hasn't gone all Geoff Moss on us. It's an existence.

Still, the ginger one's return to the first team should lift the the place, bring some much needed Hegativity, and last night's results were alright for us, don't you think?