Cod Almighty | Diary
Strike a light
12 June 2015
Retro Diary writes: 'Crowdfunding' is a new word for an old concept. America's Statue of Liberty, would you believe, was paid for by public donations after a newspaper campaign. The internet has made public fundraising both easy and instantaneous, and I have high hopes that such truly democratic processes will help to change the world for the better. However, a number of crowdfunding misadventures in the arts have shown that it is sometimes considerably easier to raise money than to make the resulting project a success.
Within football, our own Operation Promotion has attracted a lot of attention because, unusually, its proceeds are to be used directly for the playing budget. We have form in this area, of course, having spent fans' money in the past to acquire two players who turned out to be among the very best ever to wear the stripes.
So are we world leaders? Are we cleverer or more generous than other fans? Or is it just that we get so fed up that we'd sell our own kidneys to watch decent football?
Donations to the cause this time round have averaged out at about £37 per donor, although this will be skewed by a few big hitters so that the effective average will be slightly less than this. This is still an extraordinary gesture by an awful lot of people. The thing that nobody's really saying – although it was implied by your original/regular Diary yesterday – is that forty-something thousand quid plus the Mullens' top-up, amazing achievement though it is, doesn't go far in football, and could be wasted in five seconds flat.
Mr and Mrs Mullen's initial fifty grand donation near the end of last season was a case in point. In the end it paid for us to have a little look at Gregor Robertson with a view to signing him on for longer. But apart from that it came to nothing, and the generous couple were left having to decide whether to delve into their winnings all over again.
That the Mullens consider £4.8million enough to both secure their families' futures and bring success to Grimsby Town would normally make me slightly nervous. But the couple seem thoroughly good eggs and, having taken advice from Camelot, seem to be dealing with the whole thing with impeccable common sense. Investors in football, though, have a habit of getting sucked in, and they must know by now that money donated is rarely recovered.
Having started out being very nearly the luckiest people alive, if the Mullens completely destitute themselves trying to help my football team succeed, they can eat for free at my house every day for the rest of their lives. And that's a serious offer. Keep some back, Lee and Sue, would be my advice – I know you will. As lottery winners there could be no bigger comedown than having to put up with my cooking.
Getting the fans to pay for players can only really happen in the game's basement, simply because footballers higher up are now paid too much for it to work. Let's say our bucketful of tenners gets us something in the region of a good Conference centre-forward's salary (I'm guessing). If Man Utd fans had to raise £13 million for Wayne Rooney's salary, that would be a cool £171 for each man, woman and prawn cocktail-munching dentist from Exeter in an Old Trafford sell-out.
One thing it does show is our faith in the manager to pick a player. Tactically, even Hursty himself might admit he has much to learn, and we trust next season will reflect some progress in that respect. But his acquisitions have been almost universally intelligent and well-received. This widespread confidence in the manager's ability to spend cannily is, for me, possibly the most impressive and heartwarming aspect of what's happening right now.
But now it seems set to be tested to the limit. Hursty, if he gets his way, is about to spend £50k of our money on a transfer fee, which is a rare enough thing in the Conference in itself, on a player who has never played first-team football any higher than the division below. Centre-forwards, however, if they're young enough, have phenomenal potential for 'added value'. And if young Bogle were to notch a whole bunch of goals for us, this whipround could turn into a Ryan Bennett-style cash cow. He turns 24 in July 2016, so a two-year contract might be a good way to tie him up for hostage purposes.
That's if he scores any, of course – centre-forwards also have a tendency to find their level as they move upwards. Or they can get injured. There's no law of nature which says this all has to end well.
Making a firm and startlingly large offer early in the close season as Hursty has done is a bold statement of intent, and forces any club wanting to trump our bid to act quickly. So we should know the outcome of the Bogle saga quite soon.
Solihull are already planning the party with our fifty grand, although the player himself is coolly playing a game of 'first to blink' with us, holding out for a better offer, but running the risk of us losing interest. There are other strikers out there, after all. Although we might be witnessing the birth of a third crowdfunded legend, I hope we still have a plan B. And if we fail to land Bogle, you can be sure that anyone offered to us after that will have an inflated price tag, now the world thinks we're rich.
Finally, we wake up this morning to some more transfer news. As called by the rumour mill, Danny East has joined Town on a one-year contract. Recently released by Portsmouth, the Hessle-born 23-year-old can play anywhere across the defence but is thought to be a replacement for Carl Magnay at right-back. Tom Miller, formerly mooted, has now signed for Carlisle.