Cod Almighty | Diary

It is my love of the club that will make me stay away

9 January 2018

Well, I'm fed up. I can handle defeats – after all, we've had worse seasons in terms of results. I can handle the bad performances. I've been supporting the Mariners all my life, so I can handle a lot of things. But what I can't handle any more is, well, this.

Relentlessly awful football. Awful entertainment. Huge squads filled with nothing. Players we own, playing for other teams. Other teams' players, playing for us. Players on two-year contracts, nowhere near the first team. No vision for the future. It's drained me of any remaining enthusiasm I had. Who are we? What's our identity? What's our five-year plan? What's our three-year plan? What's even our plan to negate the threat of Newport County next Saturday? Who knows.

One thing is for certain: your West Yorkshire Diary won't be there to see it. I declared on Twitter at the weekend that I won't be attending Blundell Park again this season unless something changes. A win won't change things. It's quite clear that events on the pitch have now started to represent the rot that's grown at the heart of our beloved football club and I am simply not prepared to continue giving John Fenty and Russell Slade my hard-earned money only for them to spunk it up the wall and serve me this football diarrhoea, week after week.

I'm not prepared for them to fritter my hard-earned money away on players who won't even make a handful of appearances in the black and white shirts before they have the rest of their deals paid up early. I'm not prepared to keep giving the club my hard-earned money while we continue to make bad decisions and bad investments.

It's not just me. It's many of us – it's just that the majority don't declare it on Cod Almighty, the Fishy, Facebook or Twitter. They're just not going to matches any more, and you can see that in the falling attendances.

I haven't fallen out of love with the club, though. If anything, it's my love for the club that's making me stay away. I'm not giving up. I'm fighting to make Fenty and the board realise things need to change. They simply cannot continue running the club as they are, otherwise we will end up in non-League.

This isn't about sacking Slade. It's about him learning to adapt, and showing some sense of responsibility for this awful brand of football he insists we play, week after week, month after month. We may have won nine league games this season, but it certainly doesn't feel like it. If Slade thinks playing awful, predictable, bore-the-opposition-to-death tactics really is the way to achieve success, I'd like to know why – because, correct me if I'm wrong, in his managerial career to date it hasn't brought him promotion anywhere else.

It's also about Slade working harder to get the best out of the players he signed. Those players are his responsibility. Also, at a time when the team craves creativity, it appears as though he's driven our most creative player back to part-time football and ruined the confidence of a striker who, while he may have not looked bothered lately, is clearly of fourth-flight standard – if only we could play to his strengths. Clearly, we don't, and our loss is rumoured to be Scunthorpe's gain. If the Iron can get the best out of Sam Jones then they'll have a good player on their hands.

At this rate, next season's budget will have to be calculated on 1,000 season ticket sales – and that feels generous. Style of play does matter because, when results aren't going our way, fans still want to see hope for the future. Proof that we can create chances. Proof that we can score. Proof that we do have a plan when we go 1-0 down. Proof that we have players who will lay everything on the line for us. Proof that we can adapt when things aren't going our way.

Right now, I'm just not seeing any of it. All I see is a manager stuck in the past, playing old tactics, signing new players to cover the mistakes of his previous purchases (who haven't been given a fair crack of the whip) and making no real attempt to build anything for the future. He's built a bang-average fourth division squad for today, which will probably finish 18th, and the only thing I'm clinging on to right now is the knowledge that he improved us in his second season during his first spell.

I'd love someone from the club to tell me why I should continue giving them £18 when I'm getting no enjoyment, no entertainment and no sense of fun. As an exile – who also pays extra in petrol – going to Blundell Park has become an expensive chore. If I'm getting nothing in return, then I don't see why I should continue.

I don't expect everyone to react in the same way. I'm not suggesting that if you continue attending matches, you're wrong. You're not. Personally, I feel like I've been taken advantage of for too long, and it's time to make my stand.

I'll return not when we start winning games, but when I feel like my time, effort and support are appreciated, and when my money will be used sensibly and fairly. I'll return when we attain some sense of stability, and when we show some thought for the future. I'll return when the board stops treating fans with contempt – although on that score I could be waiting until Fenty's horrible out-of-town steel box is built, or when hell freezes over – whichever occurs first.

I'd usually show (or at least feign) interest in new signings, but right now I don't care if Charles Vernam played in Iceland, or that he's highly thought of at Derby. Tony Crane was highly thought of at Sheffield Wednesday. But we need to trust Slade because we have no alternative. Let's trust the Slade who once took Harry Kane on loan to Leyton Orient, or the Slade who discovered Phil Jagielka.

There is hope. There's always hope. But I'd rather stop hoping and start knowing that we have a much stable future, led by a board that understands the fans, and a team of loyal players that's led by a manager who knows how to get the best out of them. If we have that, we have something to get behind, and something worth paying to watch. Hey, you never know – we might even get a bit of enjoyment out of it.

UTM