Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Tuesday 4 October 2011

4 October 2011

The other night your original/regular Diary, together with Mrs Diary, watched the 2009 Ken Loach film Looking for Eric. If you haven't seen it, you should. It's really good. Pffff, move over, Barry Norman. This is easy!

In the film, a dodgy gangster type befriends the hero's wayward teenage son, but only to use him to look after his gun. After the dodgy gangster type shoots somebody, he quickly offloads the gun on the hero's son, and soon enough the police are battering down the hero's front door.

Mike Parker's 'gift' of shares to the Grimsby Town Supporters Trust strikes me as a similarly convenient act of offloading. Make no mistake: this gesture is not an act of love, or generosity, or a sudden belief that fans should have a say. It's stone-cold pragmatism. Parker is having his collar felt by the takeover panel (whatever that is) and needs to reduce his shareholding quickly to avoid having to buy everyone else's shares. Absolutely no bugger will want to buy Parker's shares: the experience of Parker himself has demonstrated that it's clearly impossible to work alongside Deadly John (Topcon) in any capacity other than nodding and saying, yes John, that's lovely, carry on. And the cost of buying everyone else's shares would be greater than the cost of 'gifting' some of Parker's own shares to the trust. It's stone-cold pragmatism. It's mathematics.

And it's a bit like the resignation as chairman of Deadly John (Topcon). You hear about it and it makes you go "oooh!" And then you think about it, and read a bit, and you go "oh".

This is not to say, however, that no good will come of it. The possibility of a substantial shareholding has noticeably re-energised the trust, which had lain dormant for a year or two. There are good people involved in the trust, and they might just be able to give the current directors a pointer or two as to where they've gone so wrong (let's just move on from Dave Otter falling dutifully in line behind Fenty's catastrophic decision to sack Alan Buckley).

But for the trust to gain a place in the boardroom would, of course, would need those self same directors to loosen up on their current 'show us the money' policy on board admission. If the two biggest shareholders (Parker and GTST) are both unrepresented on the board, then surely the chairman's position becomes even less tenable than Fenty's? Perhaps someone who Knows About This Stuff could fill us in.

Anyway, Town's reserve team is playing away at King$ton Communication$ FC this afternoon. Jamie Green is injured again so he won't be playing, but Scott Garner and Gary Silk are in. This is Town's non-existent reserve team, which, it was widely reported was scrapped in the summer. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a trawler to follow. Caw!