Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Thursday 4 October 2012

4 October 2012

If Town are going to move to a new stadium, they'll only get one shot at it. It's taken 20 years and the plans are still yet to progress beyond the drawing board. So if mistakes are made, there'll be no second chances. Everything rides on every decision being made correctly, and made correctly first time. Get it right and it could lift the Mariners two divisions, perhaps giving a much-needed economic boost to North East Lincolnshire along the way. Get it wrong and it could kill the club.

Given Deadly John 'Three Relegations' Fenty's track record in charge of the club you love, do you trust him to get it right?

The venerable local newspaperman Nigel Lowther tackles the subject of Town's new ground in his Cleethorpes Chronicle today. Your original/regular Diary, sadly, is beyond the circulation reach of the defiantly offline, analogue and print-based Chronicle. So I can't read what he has to say. But I see from Lowther's Twitter account that he believes any new stadium should be built on the docks. This has long seemed to me the best idea by a million miles. Like 99.407 per cent of Town fans, I know nothing about planning law, the commercial property market or any of that stuff. But I bet Nige Lowther does. And I'll find it hard to support any new stadium project next to a crematorium or a chemical works unless I'm absolutely convinced the docks are not an option.

Of course, Fenty has told us the docks are not an option. But when Fenty gave his unequivocal support to a manager, and then sacked him two days later, there was clearly no reason ever to believe another word he would say. Nothing has changed since. Fenty told us Great Coates was the only possible site for a new stadium, and now he's looking at Macaulay Lane.

Non-chairman Fenty may be many things, but one thing he's not is a thief. He has put money into the club in the wrong way, but at least he hasn't taken money out. The same cannot be said for Robert Peter Ridsdale, serial ruiner of clubs, who has been banned from acting as a company director for seven and a half years. Ridsdale, currently chairman at third division Preston but possibly not for much longer, was found to be channelling money from football clubs into his personal bank account and issued with the ban yesterday following an Insolvency Service investigation.

Less than a year ago on this page I lamented Grimsby supporters' tendency to swoon pathetically at rich 'investors' rather than get off our knees and mobilise our own power. It was a bloody good bit of writing, actually. Wearily I noted: "One contributor to a messageboard even posted recently, with no apparent irony, that we should welcome Peter Ridsdale with open arms."

Before we sign off, let's take a moment to think about Paul Groves. Many a Town fan will note sadly that their former midfield hero has been given the heave-ho by third division Bournemouth after about 18 minutes in charge. There's a school of thought that Groves is a good coach but lacks the qualities needed to make a good manager. While I've never quite subscribed to this point of view, I've sometimes found myself casually flicking through its back issues. And then I've remembered those tremendous, swashbuckling performances that kept Town in the second division back in 2003, overseen, of course, by Groves. Either way, it's just a pity that Bournemouth never gave him time. This sacking proves nothing about Groves and everything about the shitarse hyperactive culture we now live in.