Cod Almighty | Diary

Get him out

30 May 2016

We should still be living in the moment.

Had Craig Disley left the club, what would be our most vivid memories of him? His post-match interview at Braintree, or the moment he lifted the cup that confirmed the success of Operation Promotion, perhaps. For playing action, you might go back to the late run into the Forest Green box on 6 March to get his head on to the end of a cross. For those of Middle-Aged Diary's vintage, fitting enough if he had called time on his Town career with the caption "1-0 (Disley)". No captain since has come as close to matching the stature of the man whose late appearances in the opposition penalty box produced many a "1-0 (Groves)".

We needn't worry. Craig Disley has signed a contract to keep him at Blundell Park another year. His interview confirming the news is characteristically both positive and honest. Yes, at 34, he would be the first person to sign, and yes, every time he has a poor game, the story will be not that he was off-colour but that "his legs have gone". He's ours now, part of the fabric of Blundell Park. He'll be one of the touchstones against which, for decades to come, the combativity, the nous, of players who come to patrol the midfield are measured. 

The significance of that win at Forest Green was not quite what we hoped at the time, but it was a handy win to have in our memory banks once we came to accept that promotion, if we got it at all, would be through the play-offs. The player who set Disley up is one to whom we are saying goodbye. The second half of the season was less kind to Andy Monkhouse, after his early matches showed we had got ourselves a composed, intelligent footballer, an excellent foil for Conor Townsend. If the last few months exposed his lack of pace, we can still reflect that there were not too many players on our books who could have conjured that chipped cross for Disley's winner.

Jon-Paul Pittman, who has signed for Harrogate Town, was a player we hoped would do good things that never quite materialised; or not when I was watching anyway. It would be good to just point you in the direction of Liam Wood's well-judged Telegraph tribute and sign-off, perhaps pointing you as well towards a favourable write-up in the Guardian.

But no. Over the last year, Andrew Newman has emerged, through his displays of support at wrestling shows, as one of our celebrity fans. A generous contributor to Operation Promotion, he was rewarded with a squad number. Perhaps it was that which gave him the sense he was entitled to join in the celebrations in the away dressing room at Braintree. It was the players' moment, and no-one else should have felt they could share it. (Thanks to Wicklow Diary for that observation.)

We now know how Newman could afford to be generous. To adapt the Daily Record's headline, far from being a super-fan, he is someone who milks fans. His business is founded on inserting himself between an act and its fans and exploiting their adoration. He adds nothing to the relationship. In fact, he weakens it. It defies belief that any act, any sporting institution, would want to be associated with a ticket tout.

It is a severe misjudgement that the club should be seeking to protect Newman's reputation, at least until he has publicly answered the claims made in the Daily Record. It is an even greater misjudgement that the club's most popular "independent" messageboard should be joining in with the gagging. Newman's business may be "perfectly legal" but it is also perfectly reprehensible, a symbol of an awful lot that is wrong with 21st-century Britain.

And, unless I have missed the announcement, Andrew Newman is not a sponsor of the club. Thanks to his deep pockets, he was able to contribute significantly to Operation Promotion and was significantly rewarded in return. But to describe him as a sponsor is to steal a source of pride for our whole community and to start treating promotion as something that a few rich mates did on our behalf. The credit belongs with Paul Hurst, with Disley and his fellow players, and to all of us who made it possible for them to stay at Blundell Park.

The moment Town take the pitch with "Get Me In" on their shirts is the moment I get out.