Cod Almighty | Diary
Football fans are idiots
18 August 2017
Wicklow Diary writes: Before John Salako played his part in the latest botched Football League draw, he was a tricky winger for Crystal Palace and, on occasion, England. In between, he made a contribution to a 2005 article that has stuck with me, mainly for the bluntness of its title, simply, "Football fans are Idiots". Salako's input bordered on unkind.
Fans, most of them are sad. They think the game is more important than it is, it says something about the miserable kind of lives they must lead. They get things out of proportion.
Re-reading it twelve years on, a lot of the article retains its impact, although I had to smile about Luton's bright fan-driven future as they "stand atop the Championship". It's Salako's comment and another excerpt however that makes me mention it today.
When are you going to realise that when your favourite club isn't counting your cash, it's laughing at you?
I'm browned off with aspects of GTFC and have been for a while. The fact that fans organising a charity game has unfolded like the plot of the worst mafia film ever has not helped. Yesterday's diary was a corker and captured the essence of the problem for me so there's no need to re-hash it all. Let me have a paragraph or two though to remind you of who has been inconvenienced by the GTFC monopoly.
The people organising and supporting the charity game are diehards. They are there whether Town are playing at Welling or Wembley. They are the people that don't give up on their club even when it is plunged into non-League through years of negligent mis-management and becomes a laughing stock.
They go further though. They don't just follow the club to non-League or League grounds across the country at all times of the day and night. At a time when the club was coming closer and closer to the alternate universe chillingly described by Pat Bell's What If?, they put their hands in their pockets. No conditions, no strings attached: here is some more of our cash. That act allowed the club to afford the players that would earn promotion to the League and, in one case, a large 'undisclosed' transfer fee. Without supporters like this down the years, there is no GTFC.
The charity game episode is another example that this love and trust is all one way. That's simply not good enough. Aside from everything else, when we look around and ask why more people in the town don't attend games or indeed support GTFC, remember episodes like this.
Tomorrow we visit Stevenage. Our fixtures with them last season were extremes. The away defeat is best forgotten. A chaotic - dangerous even - lack of organisation and preparation from Stevenage was only matched by the drivel that Town served up on the pitch. The home fixture of course was the Omar show. Yesterday Bogez was on the move again, leaving Wigan for Cardiff. If there was a sell-on fee to be received, we'd probably be the last to know about it.
Original/regular Diary has a thing about Wigan. Ask him about it next time you see him. He feels about them the way I feel about poxy Cheltenham. He spat out his brew when Omar joined Wigan. I had to agree. The wrong move at the wrong time. A two division step up would be tough enough without it being straight into a side in the relegation places. Wigan fans didn't see it like this though and didn't take to Omar when he didn't bag twenty five goals and send them into the playoffs.
Ah yes, back to tomorrow. Scott Vernon is still out with the calf strain acquired in the warm-ups last Saturday. Sam Kelly is training and could be ready though. I thought he struggled a bit on his debut at Chesterfield. Like many players these days, he looks like he could have given Daley Thompson a run for his money in the 1984 Olympics. Wide men don't seem to come in the Mike Brolly mould any more. You power and brawn your way to the byeline by pumping iron and becoming a 'beast'.
Physical preparation and training has obviously changed over the years but some of today's players look like they'd have to be guided in a wide arc through a set of traffic cones to get around a full-back. Meanwhile, Mike would have completed a wiry slalom to the by-line and slung over a cross for Scott Vernon to head straight at the keeper. Of course Mike also played for George Kerr, a manager who famously told his players that "If you're up all night drinking and chasing loose women and you can't play football the following day, you need to give up the football". Swings and roundabouts, innit?
That's one of the reasons I think Siriki excites. He's a different build and physique to Brolly but he does looks as though he's always trying to hold in a wriggling twisting run. Hopefully we'll see him get the ball to his feet tomorrow and let some of those wriggles free. Stevenage have two draws from their opening two games including a leaky 3-3 at home on the opening day. They are close to full strength with only Jack King missing. UTM.