Cod Almighty | Diary

We got ginger ale, boiling hot Texas style ginger ale

19 July 2016

Wicklow Diary writes: Feeling disorientated this pre-season? After the relative calm of the last few years, we've a slew of new players and new formations to familiarise ourselves with. And the friendlies aren't helping matters. Playing on consecutive days means we've had different line-ups in each of the last four games

It's a challenge for the fans and a challenge for Hurst, Warrington and Doig. In what must be a thoroughly insignificant first, all three played at Alfreton on Saturday. Partly due to injuries – but also to make Andy Monkhouse feel slightly less old when confronted with the six Town youngsters who also featured. The Dave Moore comeback campaign starts here.

Struggling to keep abreast? Spare a thought for friends and family who have a second club to make Match of the Day interesting. Don't scoff but where do they find the energy and the capacity? How can any brain operate with two teams? It's probably easier to speak two languages. Throw a national team in there and it really starts to get crowded. Can they really have room in their heads for the tactical shortcomings of two or three managers? Half-and-half brains to go with the half-and-half scarves? Or should that be quarter brains as it's already divided up into poetry on one side and designing schematic diagrams for dishwashers on the other?

The orientation process continues this evening at Boston. We still have no new strikers to confuse ourselves with but, I am told we are about to sign – wait, what just landed on my desktop? Stadium news? Hold everything.

The purpose of the last update in April was to tell us to expect an update in June or early July. This is going to be big, surely. I mean an update with an update: an update squared. Perhaps the council has been spurred on by Scunny getting planning?

Nah. The update to the council cabinet slipped and missed its target yesterday (insert JP penalty gag here) and is now due in August. The news is hiding near the end of this guff if you can be bothered to spoil your lunch reading it. It has certainly spoiled my breakfast.

That shared resigned 20-year fug that descends when you know that it's not even worth getting upset over the news. There's an article full of could be and maybe in the Malwaregraph, and I'm sure the council can provide an excellent reason for the 'slip'. We need people who overcome problems – not use them as convenient excuses.

The club hasn't commented on the updated date for the update yet. Just who is the project manager for this project? Who is cracking the whip? The person who makes sure everyone gets their bit done on time? I had a good long rant on this in a diary last year.

Everyone else is getting their stadium act together, so why can't we? Some people will blame the council. If it is their fault, why have years of different councils been so equally useless? Other councils have been able to assist their clubs: North Lincs, for example, with Scunny. As is often the case on the stadium and other problems, GTFC is the common denominator.

First up, I'm not a crank. We can do things right. We can. I've seen it in the club shop. I've seen it with the Mariners Trust. I've seen it on the club open days and mascot packages. I saw it last year when the lad from Carlow was treated like royalty when, assisted by a crew from the Fishy, he made his first pilgrimage to Blundell Park.

Other stuff leaves you less positive. I won't bore you with the list but here are a few recent examples. We've mentioned it before but a couple of us at CA have contacted the club about player kit and matchday sponsorship options. The club doesn't seem interested in taking our money. Emails and calls have gone unreturned. And don't bother going online to try and buy the flashy new third kit that we wore against Hull to, err, avoid clashing with their away kit. There is no mention of it in the store.

Earlier this month, the ticket office ran out of season ticket books and asked people to come back to collect or pay for postage. This is all trivial, absolutely trivial, and people will say the printing company let us down. It's not trivial if it's part of a pattern. When you're running a season ticket drive to sell three thousand and you notice the box getting empty, you plan ahead. These books were being sourced locally. If the printer is to blame, you ask them to get out of bed if necessary or risk losing the club contract. This was all compounded by the club not making an official announcement. Instead a well-intentioned member of staff put out a Facebook post to inform fans via Chinese whispers.

If we can't get the simple things right, what chance have we got of building a bloody great big stadium? Will the club as we know it die because we're stuck in an unsustainable old stadium or an unsustainable new one?

Maybe external forces will play a part in our ultimate demise. The Football League chair Ian Lenagan spoke at the Supporters Direct & Football Supporters Federation Supporters Summit at the weekend. He sounds like another beaut to go with the CEO, Shaun Harvey. There can be few industries where the people in charge treat their customers which such contempt. Lenagan said that he "could not categorically state" academy teams would not end up in the pyramid.

FFS, you are meant to be acting on our behalf. Get the message: we don't want B teams. They will kill the Football League, that thing you are chairman of. These guys are either idiots or have other motives that aren't in our interest. If reading the council document doesn't finish you, the transcript of Lenagan's speech surely will.