Cod Almighty | Diary
If a loss proves we need a new stadium, maybe the poor did cause the 2008 crash
4 November 2014
It's eight hours to kick-off. We got a full tank of news, half an hour to write it. We won our last five games, but your Middle Aged Diary is still feeling mardy. Hit it.
First up football, and tonight we play at Braintree, whose recent 0-0 draw against Woking ended a run of four league defeats. This is one of just two Conference matches this evening, and our manager of the month is having his cake and eating it. Paul Hurst manages simultaneously to be pleased we have a game and feel it's unfair when we have an FA Cup tie to prepare for.
Not only have we not won in any of our three visits to Cressing Road: we are still awaiting our first goal there. Nevertheless Toto Nsiala is looking forward to the trip. He tells the Telegraph the spirit in the squad beats all records for strength of spirit among a group of professional footballers. I seem to remember players making similar comments under all managers since Mike Newell (and, my word, have we seen the benefit), although they were probably misquoted when they were talking about the strength of the spirits.
Presiding over, but not chairing, this melange of joyful banter is John Fenty. You can tell when we are on a good run of form because that's usually the moment he decides to assume the rights of a chair and make an inopportune statement. This time it's to tell us that the club's losses of £227,441 in the year ending in May 2014 "show that the football club cannot make ends meet at Blundell Park". You may feel that there might be one or two more financial variables involved in running a club than where we play our matches, but no doubt the bits of Fenty's statement where he showed how none of them have any impact were just edited out.
Fenty's statement is a textbook instance of begging the question. However, rest assured he is not "scaremongering" or "playing political games". We know this because he tells us so, and Fenty is a man of his word. Just ask Neil Woods, or Mike Parker.
In the Mariners Trust we must trust, therefore, and last night's AGM resulted in Terry Rudrum agreeing to take over as acting chair while a permanent replacement for Chris Parker is found, and the election of six new board members. With the away fans' bar winning praise, there is probably some 'piss-up in a brewery' line for me to finish on there, but it's eluded me.
Besides, I've got this new book to read: Logic The Fenty Way. When I've read it, I should be able to prove that it was me cooking a fish pie while listening to the game on Saturday that accounted for the three points.
You'll have to do it without me tonight though.