Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Thursday 2 May 2013

2 May 2013

Congratulations are due to James McKeown, who has been voted Town supporters' player of the year, and to Andi Thanoj, who has picked up the award for young player of the year.

As you probably know, we don't have an official party line at Cod Almighty. We're a group of people with opinions that sometimes differ. But nearly all of us have argued, at some point over the past two or three years, on one thing. Town can't go on spending half a million to a million pounds more every year than they earn. Whatever assurances we get from Flagsmasher Fenty about his loans being 'benign' (and indeed, the GTFC community has already witnessed several times precisely what an assurance from Fenty is worth), the club can't go on adding substantially every year to an already very large debt.

Town have today announced the release of eight players: Bradley Wood, Ian Miller, Derek Niven, Greg Fleming, Simon Ford, Frankie Artus, Greg Pearson and Louie Soares. (Well, apparently, they announced that nine were being released, but then they changed their mind about Sam Hatton.) Soares and Pearson clearly had no future with the club. Artus, Ford, Fleming and Wood were effective squad players. Niven and Miller were established members of the first team.

So what's going on? Why get shot of useful squad players who, in Ford's and Fleming's case, were signed as squad players? Why release a footballer regarded by most as one of the best central defenders in the Conference?

It's the money, isn't it.

So am I going to get cross at the first signs of GTFC starting to be run on a more sustainable footing? No. That would be hypocrisy. Your original/regular Diary, like the rest of the CA team, accepts that our club can't go on living beyond its means, even if that means remaining in the Conference for longer than we would like.

What I am annoyed about is the fact that Town have released one of their best players, apparently for financial reasons, just a day or so after Flagsmasher Fenty told us next season's budget would be only marginally smaller than this season's.

By all means start to run our football club in a more sustainable way. But don't try and do it on the sly.