Cod Almighty | Diary

When will the ghosts of football past, present and future finally visit John Fenty

24 December 2019

The thing that astounds Middle-Aged Diary whenever our major shareholder releases one of his statements is just how many gullible idiots can be found to say "I've been critical of Fenty in the past, but he comes across really well. Can't fault anything here."

If Prince Andrew had done his Jeffrey Epstein apologia not on the BBC but on Grimsby Town's YouTube channel, I fancy there'd be people saying "I'm not the Royal Family's biggest fan, but you can't argue with that" and "Be careful what you wish for. We could have minor royals hanging out with Gary Glitter or Stuart Hall."

I suspect they fancy themselves hard-headed realists in a world of football fantasists. "Unless there is an eccentric millionaire Town fan out there, we depend on Fenty" they pronounce, regardless that our benign lender is actually getting his loans repaid just now. Or "You can say what you like, but we could be Bury." It is a well-known fact that the Football League consists of just Bolton, Bury, Macclesfield and Grimsby, and no other models for running a professional club are available.

For those of you who have found better things to do with 20 minutes of your time, this is Fenty's gist.

He is very taken with Anthony Limbrick and Ben Davies. They have lifted a cloud apparently, but it is "a results business". One of the delights of following Town is how, as some fans try to sound like Fenty spouting on about "tyre-kickers", Fenty himself tries to sound like one of those fans who thinks they have to talk like the dullest kind of TV pundit.

He is going to buy some shares so Limbrick can bring in two of three players in January. These will be shares, not loans, but he is clear that when, or rather if, Fenty finally sells up, he will expect to get all his money back. This regardless of the fact that the club he brought shares in at the start of the century was a second flight club, and that now it is clinging to its membership of the League.

Directors, it is true, have always had to be prepared to lend money to the club, but to cover shortfalls in gate receipts, not to fund their own catastrophic decision-making. It is as though you went to get a mortgage and the bank manager said he'd lend you the money, but only if you spent it on his magic beans from which will grow a wonderful 21st century football stadium.

Talking of which, Fenty confirms he has come around to Freeman Street as a location. That is the same Freeman Street he had "independent" consultants rule out as a location when he pursued his dream of building a ground near a crematorium. Things have changed of course and everyone has 20-20 hindsight: if only someone could have suggested it four years ago.

On the takeoever, the big story is not, as the Grimsby Telegraph wrote it up last night, that he will set a deadline: an idea he haughtily dismissed only a month or so back. The headline is that there will be no takeover.

There are two potential investors: one is named as Tom Shutes; the other is unnamed but is not Alan Hardy. His offer to them is to invest in the club, join but not replace the board, deliver a new stadium to Fenty's liking, and then perhaps he will consider relinquishing overall control.

In short, he is offering investors responsibility without power. Fenty is concerned new people might not show the same care and concern for the club he has so successfully nurtured these last 16 years. He says they may not understand how Grimsby Town is run. I suspect his real concern is that they may understand all too well. The offer is one no worthwhile investor would touch.

If all this sounds familiar, try reading the last few paragraphs back and replacing the name Anthony Limbrick and Tom Shutes with Neil Woods and Mike Parker. It is almost as though the last decade had never happened. Unfortunately it did, but the lessons have not been learnt.

Ah well, it is Christmas and we have a game to go to on Boxing Day. Soon after this diary was originally published, Macclesfield confirmed they have been issued with the safety certificate they need host a match.

Until then, can I suggest this? Unlike the banal mediocrity of present-day Blundell Park, this is bizarrely wonderful. Although the composer shares a name with the original Guest Diary and I was put onto it by Cod Almighty's old Mystic Mick, our only contribution has been to applaud it wildly.