Cod Almighty | Diary

It might be a fix, but it's still broke

4 September 2018

So underwhelming has the build-up been that Middle-Aged Diary had to look it up to confirm that the Checkatrade Trophy does indeed start tonight. This year the club's own publicity department is joining the boycott.

Let's not repeat the argument why any competition which pits one club's first team against another's junior team is demeaning. Why, even without any talk of the 'thin end of the wedge', it lessens the status, the appeal, and so the future, of your local club.

But don't for a moment let yourself think anything has changed, that the whole issue is now 'boring'. Calling an argument 'boring' is always the resort of those with no leg left to stand on. The boycott was always boring: we'd prefer to watch football on a Tuesday night than Holby City. That was the genius of last year's Check-our-tirade game. But each extra person making their way to a Trophy game, no matter with what mutiny in their hearts, will be seized on by the Football League as evidence that fans are beginning to warm to the competition. The Checkatrade Trophy is still broke, so don't give league chief executive Shaun Harvey the excuse to claim it is fixed.

Given a clean slate, how would we fix a future Football League Trophy, stripped of B teams? There'd be no group stages, which simply dilute the appeal of sudden death and put off the moment when the winding lane becomes a real road to Wembley. But 48 is not a great number for a knockout tournament. That is unless we want three teams in the final: an idea that would appeal to the FA box office, and to that breed of novelist who think they can imagine up a better sport than the ones people actually enjoy already, but to no-one else.

We need 16 extra teams so that the competition naturally works from 64 down to quarter- and semi-finals, teams who will add intrigue to the early stages. Providing Conference teams with an extra competition would be welcome only for those who enjoy watching for the words 'needless distraction' on their social media timelines. That leaves a cross-border competition, with teams from the Scottish, Irish and Welsh leagues invited to make up the numbers. It is an idea which has been half-heartedly tried before and failed, but the opportunity to make real comparisons between different football cultures, to travel to new grounds in Brechin, Bala or Bray could have a real appeal.

Either that, or, with acknowledgements to Wicklow Diary, just decide which two teams get to play at Wembley by a lucky dip. What do you think? Let us know.