Cod Almighty | Diary

Our Boxing Day opponent is Ross Joyce. Accrington Stanley will be there too

23 December 2016

Retro Diary writes: Wow. We woke up this morning to Extreme Leisure’s vision, in glorious technicolour, of the Peaks Parkway complex, with Town’s new stadium at its heart, smack there on the front of the Telegraph.

Once again, and very scarily, we are treated to an entirely inaccurate artist’s impression of the stadium itself which, if as shown, cannot possibly hold fewer than 40,000 fans, and could possibly hold 60,000. We are told it will hold 14,000. Is it dishonesty? We like to think not. Maybe the artist just doesn’t know what 14,000 seats actually looks like. And indeed the ability of a space to swallow up people is an optical illusion I can entirely sympathise with having seen how many people can fit on the 3C when it’s late night shopping.

Disappointingly, the Telegraph, in its editorial inside, repeats the tired mantra that the current ground is "certainly not fit for purpose". Yes, "certainly". Well OK, but it depends, as we’ve said many times, what you think the purpose "certainly" is.

So what is the purpose of a football stadium? Let’s start from first principles.

If all British towns were identical to each other (bear with me), I mean really identical; exactly the same – same size, same layout, same buildings, same climate, same accent, same mentality, same everything - there would be no point in them playing each other at football. It would be merely a Team A versus Team B exercise. Like Town firsts versus Town seconds at Blundell Park three weeks ago. Like vests versus skins at school. There would be nothing for fans to get behind – no reason to be partial. Nobody would care who won, because the winner and the loser would be the same thing.

So the first principle is that there has to be differentiation in the identities of the two sides, or football doesn’t work as a passionate, biased spectator sport. This explains immediately why local derbies cause such neurosis and anxiety – why people get so upset about them - because when the identities are a bit too similar, the small differences become very contentious.

An obvious extension of this is that if clubs have identical grounds there is no differentiation between the home and away fixtures. The geographical element of the match - the landscape, the uniqueness of the tie, the fun involved in visiting a new place - is taken away, along with a good chunk of the fans' motivation. Same thing applies.

To take it even further, if a single ground has four identical stands, there’s no differentiation in the view between one set of fans and the other. Instead of one town versus another, it becomes End A versus End B. Again, it’s all kind of meaningless.

In order to know why these things are wrong, we need to understand the reverse - i.e. those things about a football fixture that make the experience unique, exciting, moving, spiritual even. What is it that makes fans proud of their own identity over that of others? What makes people happy to turn up to their ancestral and spiritual home even if the football’s garbage or the team loses? What is it that makes the best and most characterful small grounds the best and most characterful?

Right, let's start answering some of these questions. Firstly, a ground should ideally have, somewhere in it, a view of the surrounding landscape. An authentic landscape that is, by which I don’t mean a generic boxy estate, a car park and a Taco Bell (unless that is authentic of course, like in Crawley). So scoring highly are, for example, Blundell Park, Adams Park, Valley Parade (from the home end at least), and others I’m sure you could name. Weirdly, this is where the very small grounds like Harrogate, Bognor and North Ferriby really score. It’s a big factor in why some people become so obsessed with non-League football.

Next, there should be at least one place in the ground where you can see a great seething mass of humanity – that is, at least one stand big enough that the faces stretch beyond your vision - where you can get a really good crowd scene going. It should be a home for the faithful and intimidate the opposition. This may mean that the other stands have to be smaller, but this doesn’t matter. Indeed it may be a win-win as the asymmetry gives a strong, satisfying sense of orientation; of back and front; north and south; home and away.

Next, a ground should look different from other grounds. Actually the view of the surroundings could do this on its own, but some well thought-out, sympathetic architecture can really help a lot.

And lastly, it’s always nice to make a concession or two to history, because football is all about tradition. There is no more evocative sight in football than the shape of an old football stand, especially end-on. It is a timeless, nostalgic shape etched into our deepest subconscious. Think of LS Lowry’s Going to the Match.

As it happens, Extreme Leisure has chosen a funny week to try to bamboozle us into thinking a 14,000-seater stadium is vastly bigger than it is, when we were all in the Keepmoat just last week and saw it for ourselves. Ah yes, the Keepmoat.

As we know, good design is a combination of beauty and purpose - form and function. Think of the Mini Cooper, the iMac, or the Shard. As far as function goes, the Keepmoat scores a clear 10 out of 10. The spec is simple – it must hold 15,000 people and all of them must have an unobstructed view. That’s it. It succeeds.

But on everything else, the Keepmoat shows little sign of anything but the most superficial thought. It is the living embodiment of why fans of almost every team that ever moved premises romanticise and pine for their old homes - including, I noticed, some Donny fans. It’s a comprehensive defeat for the soul at the hands of the steamroller of practicality and newness. Couldn’t they have just piled a few extra seats on one side and taken them away from the other? At least you wouldn’t have needed the sun to know which way you were facing. What it needed, I thought, was a pigeon loft and a one-way toilet with the basin on the way in. And the sea. Mmm.

Having said that, two of Town’s finest old stalwarts sitting in front of me at Donny said they liked the place. As do, it seems, quite a few people, especially within the game. So pleasing everybody is clearly going to be a challenge - but that doesn’t mean we should just dump all vestiges of original thought and do it the easy way.

For my twopenn'orth, just look at this picture, taken during this year’s Town game with Morecambe:

Would I swap that for the thing in today’s artist’s impression? Probably, yeah. But would you swap it for the low-rise, same-all-round Keepmoat, which is actually bigger than the size ours will be? Well, y’see, I wouldn’t. And if we did, I think we would sooner or later (and probably sooner) be filled with the most hideous regret.

Anyway, this is supposed to be a diary not a novel, so back to the leather pill and liniment. Next up, our penultimate fixture of this wondrous year of 2016, our boxing day opponent is Ross Joyce. Accrington Stanley will be there too, I understand.

I can maybe list half a dozen days watching Town whose jewel-like quality outshines the intervening expanse of weariness. And happily one of them happened in 2016

But before that there’s Christmas, during which I urge you to put football out of your mind. Gaining tangible positives from watching football comes only by taking the very long view. In my four and a half decades watching Town I can maybe list half a dozen days that I wouldn’t have missed for anything; whose jewel-like quality outshines the intervening expanse of weariness. But worth it they certainly were. And happily one of them happened in 2016.

Christmases on the other hand are all precious, at least if you’re doing them properly. So eat, drink, count your blessings, banish the darkness and spread some joy. Spend it around children if you can.

Football is an essential part of Christmas for those of us who fall under its addictive power. But the trick with football, if you want to stay happy, is to wring every last drop of satisfaction out of a victory, while putting defeats quickly to the back of your mind. This means football should be able to make Christmas better, but never spoil it. Quite right too.

A peaceful Christmas to you all, and see you on Boxing Day at the home of football for the icing on the cake.
UTM