Cod Almighty | Diary

We don't have to write this diary. There are better tales to tell

26 April 2019

Middle-Aged Diary knows that it is the wrong time of year but - with tomorrow's visit to a team fighting for its League status in my head - it felt as though the ghost of football future visited last night, and showed me this diary entry from May 2020.

Of course it was always going to be Forest Green. Four years ago, we regained our League status at their expense. Two years ago, we celebrated our League survival at their ground. It was inevitable that Forest Green should be our grave diggers. Perhaps it is as well it was them: there were only 50 visiting fans to see us in our shame as we return to non-League, four years after we vowed, but clearly did not mean, "never again".

We are older, but absolutely no wiser. Within weeks of regaining our Football League status, the board weakened the coalition with the fans that had been built through Operation Promotion. Shamefully, the board revelled in it, gleefully blaming the fans for the lack of investment, blaming the fans for the departure of the man who had brought promotion. Anything but a moment's self-reflection. Paul Hurst himself put the boot into their lies. The constraints he had accepted as a Conference manager would remain unchanged in the Football League, except he had a new portacabin to show for his efforts.

To paraphrase Shane Warne, John Fenty hasn't run Grimsby Town for 16 seasons. He has run Grimsby Town for the same season, 16 times, unable or unwilling to admit – and to learn from – his mistakes. Always quick to revel in the limelight that belonged with the players during the few moments of success in those years, he has been characteristically silent since Saturday's defeat returned us to the Conference. No doubt we can expect the usual rambling statement soon, finding someone else to blame. The truth is that if he loves the club, the only thing for him to do now is to resign.

That diary isn't written yet. It need never be written, but – as East End Diary wrote yesterday – we do need a plan: to acknowledge and learn from our own mistakes and to learn also from the successes of clubs who have prospered, relatively, despite a smaller, less loyal, fanbase than our own.

I suggest a task force, to take a month to see what clubs like Accrington and Lincoln can teach us, and then to publish a plan: a few immediate measures to show that the club is serious about reform; and then a longer-term programme to implement structural changes. This task force would obviously need representatives from both the club and Mariners Trust boards. Given their recent track records, that may not inspire confidence, but if they see the need to learn, that would be half the battle. Besides, I can think straight away of two people, one with board experience, who would be ideal, and who would be trusted.

The question will be asked, as it always is when a Cod Almighty writer gets on his or her high horse: are you willing to put your money where your keyboard is? The answer will be the same as it always is: yes, as our means and our abilities allow. We've been doing this for even longer than Fenty has been the major shareholder. It does sometimes feel even to us as though we haven't so much written 5,000 diaries as the same diary 5,000 times. We'd love to be writing a very different kind of diary this time next year.