Cod Almighty | Diary

Do we die a slow death as sheep or, fight and maybe flourish as lions

23 May 2019

Casual Diary writes: There can be no doubt that the club and major shareholder are currently engaged in some forms of PR exercise in an attempt to calm fans' unrest. The Telegraph this week has run on consecutive days in-depth interviews with our glorious leader. In these he has enlightened us that any enquiries to invest in or buy the club were mere "tyre kickers". Yesterday we learned what a sterling job the club is doing in bringing Blundell Park up to scratch and investing in the youth academy.

What the soft-focus, supine Telegraph failed to ask was how much revenue had been wasted by his chosen consultants for a partner to finance his Fentydome dream on Peaks Parkway – for the return of not one single expression of interest. They failed to ask how much of the money spent "upgrading" Cheapside, and that spent on the academy, was from Football League funds specifically earmarked for youth development, which we automatically gain as a Football League club. They also failed to ask if the amounts spent replaced the revenues we missed out on during our six years of Fenty-inspired exile in the Conference.

I am amazed at the placidity of the Town fanbase given the direction the club has taken during the 13 years of Fenty’s tenure, and especially in the two seasons since regaining our League status. Only yesterday I read a tweet on how, in a few years' time, given the experience of a new owner, the fans would be reassessing the reign of Fenty in more sympathetic terms. How taking us down two divisions, then out of the League for six seasons, before overseeing the loss of the core of the team and the manager who brought us back into the League, can be reassessed as anything but abject failure is beyond my comprehension.

You will no doubt have the "yeah but if it wasn't for Fenty" brigade saying without him we wouldn't have a club. Herein lies the core of the debate.

You see, we would. Now I happen to be in a position to know that at least one of the recent potential investors was anything but a "tyre kicker". I don't profess to know the exact details of the bid but I know the proposal and the serious nature of the proposal, and the experience of those behind it.

That, however, is not the point. I want the club to be fan-owned. I want us to do a Swansea and as a fan-owned club go from the brink of extinction to the top flight. It is far from pie in the sky, or "tyre kicking".

This is a very brief outline. I am putting flesh on this skeleton of a proposal, and that may be the subject of another article.

Grimsby Town's last accounts show that directors' loans total £1.8million. There can be no possible scenario where – having overseen the fall from the second tier to non-League and now to the bottom flight – the directors, whoever they are can expect more than their cash returned.

On this basis I propose "Operation 8000". We sell 8,000 season tickets at a cost of £125 each. I know it won't be easy but it is certainly achievable. This raises £1million.

The current dimensions of Blundell Park allow for 452 round-ground advertising hoardings, at pitch level, roof level or centre. Based on a 23-game season, they would need to be sold at £80 a game to raise the remaining £800,000. This takes in factoring the invoices to create an up-front revenue stream.

The current staff budget is around £2.5million. To match this, each of the 8,000 season ticket holders would need to spend an average £312 throughout the season on programmes, beer, snacks, and merchandise. That equates to approximately £13 per game.

Now, no-one is saying that it is easy to run a football club. I am not saying that the above proves otherwise or is faultless. What I am doing is giving an outline as to how a fan-based proposal could be put together. The above figures take no account of revenues from the Football League, TV money, sponsorship, advertising or corporate hospitality, or of tax.

The best people, in my opinion, to own a football club are those who pay each season year on year to watch that club, not because they are champions but because it's in their blood. Swansea, Bournemouth, Exeter and Newport are just four examples of clubs which prospered under fan control. Of course there are also clubs that have failed, but I can't accept that among our fanbase we do not have the intelligence and skills to run Grimsby Town competently. We already run the bars on match days.

I hope this has maybe made you less daunted by the prospect of running the club. That we become less willing to accept the "if we didn't have Fenty" lines of the doubters and the sycophantic. I hope that we begin to take action because in the last two seasons we have come too close to once again sinking out of the League.

We have had 13 years of failure and stagnation. Let's begin from here with a new hope and do the only thing open to us if we want to secure our future. Let's buy our club.

UTM