Cod Almighty | Diary
Just one more thing...
7 June 2019
While the rest of the GTFC community gets a little more impatient over the lack of signings, your West Yorkshire Diary breathes a sigh of relief as I have no time whatsoever to comment on a new arrival or speculate on mounting evidence that someone, somewhere may have had a conversation with Michael Jolley via their abhorrent agent at a motorway service station.
It may not feel like it, but lots of things have been going on: a new women’s team has been formed (with a newly appointed manager – good luck to Dale Houlston and everyone involved); various ground improvements; the renewal of Youngseses shirt sponsorship; sneak previews of the new shirt itself; and our Ability Counts team recently won the Lincolnshire League.
New signings apart, the other thing fans are interested to know about is how well season tickets are selling. But you don’t need a dirty raincoat, a clapped out vehicle and be called Columbo to interpret that the lack of communication on this matter means numbers are seriously down on where they were this time last year.
There are very clear reasons why a lot of fans have either ditched their one big annual purchase or are leaving it a little later to decide whether they wish to pay hundreds of pounds to watch fourth division football while sat on a plastic seat.
I’m not a full-time cynic, though, and I believe more can be done to sell the dream of watching fourth division football while sat on a plastic seat. It just needs a bit of imagination, creativity and forward planning – attributes that, one might confidently claim, are sadly lacking within the walls of Blundell Park (where the only thing that seems to matter is getting your facts right on the Fishy).
Representatives of the club may tell us to ‘shut up’ and ‘lay off’ every now and again. And yet, bizarrely, I do believe they’re open to new ideas and will listen to the fans. Learn from past mistakes, be open to criticism, and then embrace the new world. No one wants this club to fail. Sometimes it feels like, as fans, we’re moving forward but the club is behaving like the naughty child who stays four paces behind, crying while considering if life might actually be better if their parents just left them alone.
And when the hysteria is over, the child regrets the tantrum and realises that they can’t live without their parents.
Yep, throwing good money after bad doesn’t sit well with me either, so the club could do a lot of work during this dearth of news to let us know that our money is valued; we as people are valued; and that it cares, deeply.
A slow news day for us should be an opportunity for the club to reconnect with the fans in more ways than just hoping Jolley signs someone soon.