Cod Almighty | Diary
Could we have Mariners Park instead of Mariners Pie Park?
29 November 2016
Wicklow Diary writes: This is what "at least we can concentrate on the league" means then. If you include the Check-a-boycott (and we're not apart from offering statistical support for meaningless observations), Town have a depressing played five lost five, 0 per cent record in all cups. Depressing, yet strangely satisfying from an obsessive compulsive disorder point of view.
The free weekend has me pondering the quirks of a fixture list that has us play only four games in the month of December but three games in the week after Christmas. No surprise that Positive Marcus Bignot is taking the positives from the break before Pompey’s visit on Saturday week. "These next two weeks will give me the chance to implement the things we want to and I'm really looking forward to that."
We're all assuming that defending corners will be covered in at least one session. Having a man at the front post would have avoided Crawley's decisive third goal on Saturday. As would Jamie Mack staying put rather than making a blind dash for the penalty spot as the corner was struck.
I've always been happier to see the old school fundamentals when defending corners. Number 2 on your right post and the number 3 on the left with big v big and no free men. Nowadays it's more complicated. This article is heavy on tactics but it does have one interesting fact that you can roll out down the pub. Bayern Munich have dispensed with men on the posts and use zonal marking. They didn't concede from a corner all last season. There you go Marcus, two weeks to turn us into Bayern please.
While MB goes all BM at the training ground for the next couple of weeks, what scraps have we got left to feed off? Omar won goal of the day for his thunderbolt at Crawley. Old school here again. Once, there were player and goal of the season awards. Not only have systems got more complicated, the awards have mushroomed too. Man of the match, team of the week, goal of the day, performance of the day. I suppose they're OK when we are winning them. No prize category (yet) for "tickets sold in a day for an upcoming away game" but we'd deffo be in with a shout with the impressive 1,200 that shifted for Donny yesterday.
Tomorrow is the last day of November, and there is a stadium thingy due. John Fenty announced at the AGM last week that the club and developer have done their part by submitting a high level viability plan to the council. It is to be reviewed by the council cabinet tomorrow. Fenty said he hoped to be getting the "thumbs up" from the council soon. He's obviously assuming of course that they can dislodge their thumbs from any orifice they may currently be stuck in.
On modern stadia, a big thumbs up to Matt Dannatt and the Telegraph who referred to Crawley's ground as Broadfield Stadium in their coverage yesterday. Little things but they don't go unnoticed. John Fenty has already indicated that our stadium naming rights will be up for grabs.
I think the fans should have first refusal on this deal. Let's be realistic here. Lower division naming rights go to local garages and garden centres; just how much will we get for our soul when we name the Fentydome? Remember Blundell Park rights have been available for years now and no one has nibbled. What if the sums were done and for an extra 25p a ticket, we could have Mariners Park instead of Mariners Pie Park?
The commercial arrangement relies on lobsided logic anyway. A lot of the time, the actual amounts involved are undisclosed. In Ireland, an insurance company paid £30 million to name the national stadium for 10 years. Irish taxpayers put in five times this amount for the initial build and fans contribute more than this every year in ticket sales alone. The fans have paid for it, why can't they name it? Let the sponsors name the toilets or the burger stalls. The model is slightly different for a club as opposed to a national side but you see my point.
In other AGM news, Fenty is still calling the PL the Premiership and still calling the EFL the Football League. Fair play on both fronts. And we've still no chairman because even if we elected another chairman, everyone would still blame Fenty when something went wrong. Fair play again, the man knows his GY audience.
Danny Collins was also mentioned. JF stated that the club wanted to trigger an option to extend the defender's stay until the end of the season. This suggested that the deal was in place. However the Telegraph is reporting today that negotiatons are ongoing.
We were meant to be playing Rotherham reserves today but the pitch is frozen so we're not. In related news, the Millers have parted company with Kenny Jackett as manager. There's a Paul Hurst managerial merry-go-round swings and roundabouts thing to avoid mentioning here so I'll end now.