Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Friday 1 October 2010
1 October 2010
"At the end of the day the club need to relocate, but we are not precious about where that might be. If the council have some serious ideas about wanting to regenerate areas, then the club would want to be part of that." So said Tory councillor and Grimsby Town chairman John Fenty through clenched teeth after the club's annual general meeting yesterday.
Fenty - who for years had insisted that the only viable option for the new stadium was in a field near a village far, far out of town; where he dreamed that retailers would pay megabucks to have the opportunity to be sited miles and miles from a decent customer catchment - drew a deep breath. So should you, gentle reader, for the statement followed an announcement that Fenty would not be renewing the planning permission for the Fentydome. Apparently it would be chucking good money after bad. Well, with the figure spent on this ill-founded, and latterly, risibly obsolete pipedream probably south of three quarters of a million quid all told - and the need to spend £50-100,000 to bring the plans up to meet current regulations - this sentence doesn't really need a punchline, does it?
Earlier, in the AGM itself, Fenty had remarked that in 1994 the Town board had favoured regenerating Blundell Park but had been talked out of it by the council. How much easier and cheaper and, most of all, achievable that would have been, I reckon. Now the local council is suggesting exciting different sites to the club and the club is listening to them. Shame Fenty's Tory government will make absolutely sure there's not a penny available to make any kind of major regeneration of poor old Grimsby achievable for at least a generation.
In other, less controversial news from the AGM, Fenty said we have a 15 per cent sell-on clause for Ryan Bennett, and that there would be a poll on the Marmite subject of the Pontoon drummer. We also learnt that the club has sold 1,800 season tickets and the projected loss this season is £600-700,000, which Fenty and Mike Parker have agreed to jointly underwrite. As for that TV deal, it is even shitter than your Guest Diarist imagined it would be when it was announced. For a televised home game we get £5,000 and £1,000 if Town feature in a televised away match. Plus some league-wide pool of never-to-be-received profit share at the end of the season. Coun Fenty (Con) said the broadcast of the Luton game had lost us money by a combination of a lower attendance and higher policing costs (because of the drunken teatime kick-off) and, unsurprisingly, Town were very negative about the deal with Premier Sports.
Woodses no longer has a clue what to say in his paid-for pre-match briefing interview. He's reduced to saying that footballers just need to play. He has obviously no idea whether the much-improved performance which I enjoyed on Tuesday night will continue. Fenty had reminded everyone earlier that Town's playing budget is in the top three for the division, so the directors have done their bit. Woodses can't quite understand why all these decent and relatively expensive players he has signed don't perform better and more consistently. "It's a mystery," he crooned affecting a Toyah-like lisp when he thought the microphone was off. Newport have been on a tremendous run and no-one has the faintest idea why. They must be very well organised, ruminated Woodses to Dale in a boring, rambling interview.
Watt (Woodses' favourite centre-half) is doubtful. Watt, in fact, isn't doubtful (he thinks he will be fit) - Dave Moore is. Atkinson, in full training for three weeks now, needs games. But tomorrow isn't the sort of game to play him, according to the manager. So Garner for Watt might be the only change. Slay one dragon and the next one seems easier. That's the theory against Welsh teams but the pure enjoyment of watching Town playing direct but passing attacking football the other night was horribly overshadowed by a nasty fragility in the last ten minutes. Let's hope Wright can manage the whole game this time and let's put off the reality that we've only got him for a month before we revert to turgid anonymous midfield drivel and a panic-stricken back four again.
The Diary asked readers on Wednesday if they can come up with a better goals-to-games start for Town than Connell's eight in 12. Up popped Diary regular Chris Beeley: "In response to your request for information about anyone bettering Alan Connell's early-season goalscoring record, the very Kevin Drinkell you also mention in [Wednesday's] diary (arguably) did better it in 1982-83. According to my dog-eared programme for the home game against Bolton Wanderers that day, by Saturday 25 September 1982 he had scored four in the league (in five games) and six more in early-season Football League Trophy and League Cup games." So Connell is right up there with the best of them, and without getting in to the granularity of the data and all that shit, arguably his goals have been more important. 1-0 (Connell) would do me just fine tomorrow. See yer.