Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Monday 23 May 2011

23 May 2011

Mardy Diary writes: Fenty has spoken - in glorious technicolour freeview. I've not listened to it myself, I've grown a bit tired of the business speak to be honest. Well, I grew a bit tired of it in 2006, but my tiredness has grown further. Or rather, I've grown more tired of it. You can probably tell by the state of this opening paragraph.

Apparently, within this little king's speech, Fenty talks a little about the future financial viability of the club, and in particular doesn't "rule out" that the club may have to (possibly) consider going part-time should it remain non-League for the forseeable future. It's one of those if/but/maybe situations, idle speculation, supposition, that sort of thing. Where the club actually ends up is down to a number of factors - most notably whether Fenty has finally lucked-in with the appointment of er, George and Ringo. However, it's hard to tell if this is genuinely Fenty coming to the realisation that his throw-money-at-it business model is not practically realisable, or whether it's yet another of those "you'll be screwed without me" benign dictator-type speeches.

But either way you read it, I'm sure a lot of supporters will baulk at the thought of part-time football. However, we are where we are - and the longer we remain where we are, the more we need to act like what we actually are. Jesus - I think I've been on a Fenty management course.

Anyway, we've been told that next season there's a playing budget of £900k, but also that the club is predicting a loss of £800k. Now, even someone with limited maths skills can see that our 'real' playing budget should be nearer £100k for the business to remain profitable. A team of youthers and part-timers essentially. Of course, cost cutting isn't the only route to profitability - and I'm sure that £800k loss would be offset somewhat by a successful season and a couple of half-decent cup runs. But success here is promotion, as even a half-decent season and a trip to the play-offs won't cover that sort of loss. So again, we're taking a big gamble on promotion - and if that fails then it would seem it's the last throw of the dice. Or the last throw of Fenty's dice, at least.

Personally, I want to see an end to the money-chucking - it's not exactly brought us great rewards over the years. We can talk about the mitigating circumstances of the ITV Digital collapse, but removing that year of silly funding from the equation (and it was silly funding), the income wasn't immeasurably different between our pre-ITV digital season and our last season in the Football League. Maybe things would've been different without the outstanding tax debt hanging over us, but trips to Cardiff and Wembley and big cup games more than covered that loss. And it's worth noting here that both Slade and Buckley achieved these successes with relatively small squads and reasonable wage budgets.

So, while wages did drop substantially (and rightly so) from the second tier to our first season back in the fourth division, they then increased year on year. The loss in gate receipts/TV money/sponsorship could easily have been mitigated during our drop by a sensible policy on squad size and wage bill. Yet what we have endured instead is a sort of artificial fiscal reality created by the continued injection of money by Fenty, which itself has created an expectation of a wage budget that is beyond our means.

And for all that money spent on the wages of hundreds of players, most of whom you and I have long since forgotten about, we have received little in return. Yet, with the current playing budget for next year as it is, we continue to go down this route. Whether the new duo use all that budget remains to be seen. They at least have a history of working to a tight budget, but sometimes the lure of money to spend is too difficult to resist. However, if they don't get us promoted next season then Fenty's legacy may well be part-time football at Blundell Park. I doubt he'll get a statue for that.