Cod Almighty | Diary

Here's what we didn't win

30 December 2019

Trentside Diary writes: Our last match of 2019 has been played. The first and last 15 minutes against Crawley we looked threatening, the middle hour we were Scott of the Antarctic on a failed mission. We tried but all our efforts were in vain. We were lucky that Crawley weren’t very good or it could have been embarrassing.

With that final match of the decade we can see the marvellous progress Town have made. We finished 2009 in 23rd in the fourth division, whereas we finish 2019 in 21st. Who said the current regime aren’t bringing progress? At that rate we probably won’t see promotion in the next few decades. And before you tell me we have been promoted from non-League, that logic mirrors the government who have trumpeted an additional 20,000 police officers to replace the 20,500 they have got rid of.

We started this Millennium in the second division with our current non-chairman on the board of directors. Much has gone wrong in the intervening 20 years, not least some calling the second division the Championship. We hung in there until 2002-03 when we went down and then, in case you thought it was a blip, we went down again in 2003-04.

John Fenty resigned as Chairman in 2011 and put the club up for sale donkey’s yonks ago, so why is he still there? The Fenty apologists keep telling us he has saved our club, so let's have a look at how our fellow members of division three back in 2003-04, when he became chairman, are doing now.

Of the 23 with us that year, only one has gone to the wall: Rushden & Diamonds. With all due respect to them, they were only formed in 1992 and were based in a town with 8,500 inhabitants, so they are hardly on a par with Town. They were dissolved in 2011 but there is still a phoenix club out there.

Five are now in the conference: Notts County, Chesterfield, Stockport, Wrexham, and Hartlepool. They have all had their issues. I’m glad we’re back in the League and the conference is hard to get out of, but I don’t doubt most of these will be back.

Five are in division four with us: Oldham, Colchester, Port Vale, Swindon and Plymouth. All are above us in the table at the moment.

Four are in the third division - Wycombe, Peterborough, Blackpool, and Tranmere - and six are in the second division: QPR, Bristol City, Luton, Barnsley, Sheffield Wednesday and Brentford. Then there are two in the top flight: Brighton and Bournemouth.

That all means 17 of the clubs who were with us in division three in 2003-04 are currently doing better than us, many of them significantly better. Given the apathy around Blundell Park for the last few years, I for one would take my chances with a new owner.

Happy New Year. UTM. Fenty Out.