Cod Almighty | Diary
The tube doesn't go to Sheffield, Mike
2 November 2015
When I see any kind of tabulated figures, a number of physiological and neurological changes take place. In the first instance my eyes glaze over. My facial muscles slacken. My brain waves reform into a complex delta/gamma amalgam, inducing a profound sense of detachment from my immediate surroundings. After some minutes, your original/regular Diary has typically entered a trance-like state in which the only signs of physical activity are a sporadic twitching in my left big toe and a glob of saliva descending my chin.
So when the people at work send me a spreadsheet, and ask me to decide on and execute particular actions based on the contents, you can imagine the horrific consequences. In the short term I resemble Daisy at the job interview with Flaps magazine in series 1 episode 3 of Spaced, and the Magic Roundabout theme is playing in my head. In the medium to long term the department is overtaken by financial catastrophe.
When Town publish their annual accounts, though, I like to take a quick rummage through the rows of decontextualized numbers and soporific corporate terminology and briefly nurture the fantasy that I'll spot some anomaly which leads to the scoop of the century, win the inaugural Pulitzer Prize for best highly principled football zine journalism conducted in a threadbare dressing gown, and spend the second half of my life in something other than nagging, befuddled disappointment and a sitting room too small to inhabit with a sofa and a telly without pulling your knees up to your chin.
Unfortunately, anyone performing the regulation skim-read for signs of a new emergent sub-plot is likely to be disappointed with the new financial statement from GTFC. A £50,000 year-on-year decline in income from matchday catering may be a curious phenomenon, but it's hardly going to trouble the Washington Post. The figures tell the same old dysfunctional story. A business being run on a deliberately unsustainable fiscal basis. A long-term strategy with no apparent research basis for the hypothetical new 'revenue streams' projected from a relocation with no realistic plan for overcoming the significant financial and legal barriers to its realisation. A plc boardroom with no chair.
Still, keep smiling, eh. Councillor John Fenty, one of the eight billion people on Earth who isn't the chairman of Grimsby Town Football Club, is right on the case – and with his track record, who would doubt his word? In the meantime the gift of the lottery millions just keeps giving. And if Josh Venney is eventually sold to a club other than O'Peterborough United, then this time the buyer might actually honour the sell-on clause.
It's worth remembering, of course, that the 'Blundell Park is rubbish' idea is just one narrative among many. In a society increasingly dominated by the interests of corporations, it gains traction readily and becomes the dominant narrative because it's the narrative promoted by affluent, middle-aged white men in suits. But it remains only one version, one perspective; not necessarily correct or even legitimate.
I fondly remember Liam Hearn describing his excitement when he signed for the Mariners, much of which was rooted in remembering the awesome sight of Blundell Park from the train to Cleethorpes, taken as a youngster. And I delight in the impressions of away fans and neutral groundhoppers – the latest of which, published on the Lost Boyos blog after a visit for Friday's highly indicative home defeat by Cheltenham, will make your heart swell and glow with a restored sense of what matters most.
As soon as we turned the corner onto the road leading up to the Blundell Park turnstiles, I had fallen in love with the place. The rusting gargantuan, floodlights are indefinitely specimens of magnificent beauty and the unusual and imposing Findus stand marks the ground out as a place full of character. It was incredible to think that this impressive ground has now been hosting non-league football for 5 years; Grimsby really should be in the Football League.
In any order you like, read the rest of that blogpost, follow Daisy into her interview, and look at Town's account sheet and the Peaks Parkway propaganda. In the end no narrative makes perfect sense. The bows might be neatly painted, but the crew might still be fools. Sail where you like. Put in where you feel most at home. And wipe that dribble off your chin.