Cod Almighty | Diary

We won't go quietly to the wall. We won't let our brothers and sisters go to the wall

17 March 2020

Tonight should have been the second in what could have been two season-boosting home games, with Cambridge the scheduled visitors. Casual Diary wrote last week of my refusal to give the season up. Fresh from our victory at Glanford Park, wins on Saturday and tonight would have seen Town potentially in the thick of it.

Instead the phrase seems more apt to the government's fantastic attempts to mimic art with reality. The footballing authorities seem no better equipped to deal with the virus and it's repercussions. But given their history we should be surprised by neither's ineptitude.

We should however make sure that those who feed at the top of the football money tree are left in no doubt that that they will not easily be allowed to let those of us further down the pecking order go to the wall. I don't only include the Premier League, the Football Association, UEFA, FIFA and the Football League in this holding to account, but also the Professional Footballers Association.

It has long irked that when the ITV Digital collapse happened, plunging clubs like ours into a death spiral, the PFA did nothing. The footballing 'authorities' who engineered the fatal contracts I expected nothing of. They were as they always are, from the local FA disciplinary boards to the FA and the league committees: grey men with no sense of the passion a local club engenders. They are there only for the status, the freebies, the cup final tickets, and because at school they were the shit kid got picked last.

The PFA however are supposed to be the players' trade union. Steeped in the traditions of mutual benefit and strength in numbers, the trade unions are supposed to be there for those on the bottom rung: an all-for-one-and-one-for-all brother- and sisterhood.

As an active trade unionist of 40 years standing, my own response to ITV would have been simple: our members will not utter a single word, not appear for one second and not acknowledge your representatives in any guise until you have paid every penny piece from the extraordinary advertising revenues you continue to generate via your other platforms. I might have compromised and agreed a period of repayment, but every penny owed to every club would have been met.

I have no doubt ITV could have met that demand. They might not have worried too much that their regional companies were barred from Walsall or Darlington and Hartlepool. But I have no doubt that the prospect of Granada being excluded from Liverpool, Everton and Manchester United; Yorkshire from Leeds; and Thames from Arsenal, West Ham, Chelsea and Spurs would be a different kettle of fish.

The PFA, instead of protecting the incomes of their members way down the pyramid, did absolutely nothing. Not a whimper. Subsequently clubs like ours were forced to cancel contracts, offload key players on the cheap, and fall from our cherished position in the second tier to the ignominy of Conference football. (Granted we had a little help from you know who.) The PFA stood aside while thousands of their members lost their livelihoods: a bloody disgrace.

And so to today. The Football League, UEFA, FIFA and all will decide the fate of the leagues, the "Champions League", the also rans cup, and the Euros.
They will attempt to find a solution which benefits those at the top of the tree and themselves; we at the opposite end will no doubt be ignored... if we allow them.

There are undoubtedly bigger things afoot than football at present. There is a real threat to life for some and livelihood for many. That said: let's ensure the football world and the PFA in particular know that this time we will not stand silently by. We will not allow clubs with a tradition lasting back 100 years and more, their players and other employees to be cast aside while the elites protect themselves.

There are PFA members and officials whose salaries between now and July would easily fund clubs at the bottom until August next year, facilitating their survival. This time let them understand that if they fail to protect their members and our clubs there will be a reckoning. We've lost Bury: let them not add to that number while they gorge on their entitled, fat salaries. If they try, make sure the fans of Grimsby Town stand proud at the front of the resistance.

ATAW