Cod Almighty | Diary

Keep it coming

2 May 2017

Wicklow Diary writes: Tonight is Player of the Year night at the Beachcomber. Is it really that time of year already? The police are getting younger every day and the football passes by quicker every season. Pádraig 'Podge' Amond and Carl 'Mags' Magnay have set the frankly awful recent precedent of winning the main award and then skedaddling to Hartlepool.

Danny 'Andrews' Andrew seems favourite to receive the honours tonight. And why not? He's been bloody good and, as my eldest pointed out at the weekend, he's the only Mariner not to miss a league game. A feat worthy of an award in itself during a period when we've had four managers, ten formations and just shy of seven thousand players. Let's hope we can hang on to him for next season and beyond.

Whatever else happens contractually, I'd feel pretty good about a full-back pairing of Mills and Andrew framing the side next season. I'm not going to speculate any further than that until we learn next week who's going and staying. I'd feel like an idiot if I blubbed over the keyboard for four hundred words and then found out Dis is actually staying. A happy idiot, mind.

If you are reading this, Mr Slade, just factor into your thinking that the Dark-Haired Disley was still playing for Italy when he was 36. Also if the non-chairman asks you again to 'lance the boil' Macca-style by offering Dis three hundred quid a week, tell him to fuck right off and threaten to set Dave Moore on him.

The official site is plugging the club's last proper payday until August. Plymouth will attempt to emulate Newcastle in 1993, Chelsea in 1984 and some other visitors that I've probably forgotten by winning a title at Blundell Park since we last managed it in 1980. Argyle have sold their allocation in the Osmond and, as you'd expect, have already been trying, as Newcastle and Chelsea did, to buy tickets in the home stands. No sign of the season tickets going on sale yet though – the club has either plain forgotten or has some PR/marketing masterstroke in store for us. I'm obviously going with the latter.

Ticketing problems of an entirely different nature at Bloomfield Road. By coincidence, badly owned Leyton Orient's final game in the Football League is at badly owned Blackpool. Another coincidence is that Town's visits to these two were my favourite away days this season. Three cheers for rubbish owners! Did you follow the trick-abandonment events at Orient at the weekend? Another utter shambles. The Football League has reacted to the terrifying prospect of a repeat of mobility scooters and picnicking families on the pitch by suspending ticket sales to Os fans for the Blackpool game. Of course, the irony here being that the last violence seen at a Leyton Orient game came from owner Bechetti kicking his manager on the touchline.

I joined the trust with a view to it influencing the future of the club by promoting lofty goals like forward planning, fiscal responsibility, youth development, and fish and chips

Orient's nattily acronymed fans' trust, LOFT, has called a meeting with league chief Shaun Harvey today to try to reverse the ticketing decision. Good luck with that one. They're just competition organisers, remember?  

Our own trust has its monthly meeting tomorrow. As we've mentioned before, the plight of Leyton Orient, Blackpool, Charlton, Coventry and others should be a lesson for every club. To my mind, a fans' trust should be a strong voice in guiding club policy and decisions. After all, the club belongs to the supporters. We appreciate the cash, but for their money the 'owners' are, in reality, only ever leaseholders or caretakers. A fans' trust should enforce this and needs to be a focal point for fans when they need to unite for more drastic action such as demonstrations and boycotts.

Does our own trust offer this? This is not a criticism of the people within the trust. I have been a strong supporter and life member of the trust for several years. I joined with a view to it influencing the future of the club by promoting lofty goals like forward planning, fiscal responsibility, youth development, and fish and chips. However, the mechanisms and set-up of the club's board seem to dilute the impact or intention of the trust membership.

In the case of the B teams in the Football League Trophy, it actually dismantles the intention completely. Something like 90 per cent of trust members passionately opposed the inclusion of B teams. This can be reflected by Jon Wood, the trust member on the board, voting against it if given the opportunity. When the rest of the board votes in favour of the proposal, Wood and, by proxy, the trust are obliged to go along with the democratic process. Instead of supporting and promoting any ensuing boycott, the trust has to toe the club line.

It gives the impression, correct or otherwise, that the board generally comes down to the trust versus John and his mates. If this is the case, it is a very effective neutering of the trust, which is restricted to acting as a free fundraiser and promotional extension of the club. Hey, perhaps the club hasn't mobilised for the sale of season tickets yet because the trust did such a good job of Operation 3000 last year?

I don't wish to sound negative on this one. One could point to positives in the club this season. I just get into a sweat when I see decent clubs like Leyton Orient going down the pan with their fans reduced to powerless observers. Big decisions, like the stadium project, hold the makings and breakings of GTFC. The board accepted they'd made mistakes with Marcus Bignot. This was doing something that we should be experts at by now: appointing managers. If we get the stadium wrong, the club won't be around to admit the mistake.