Cod Almighty | Diary

Hard times, part umpteen

27 July 2020

Trentside Diary writes: Usually this time of year would be about pre-season preparations and perhaps some late comings and goings in the squad. This year instead we have a statement from the chairman.

The Football League has announced 12 September for the start of the new season, but it could be at least October before we are allowed back to watch, and for a while after that there will probably be no away fans. For Town fans that is so disappointing: we really are in a different league when it comes to our away support. I'm not sure why we are so different away than at home. Probably the buzz, the anticipation for something different, whereas for home matches we are a playing out our own fortnightly routine in a perpetual groundhog day, with only the hope of a good result to distinguish that match from many others.

If, as Phil Day suggests, our attendance is likely to be limited to somewhere between 17 and 30 per cent of capacity, it is going to be financially very tough. At 30 per cent, it gives us a crowd of less than 3,000 which is well below our usual average. Even in the dire 2009-10 season we averaged over 4,400, admittedly with Bradford City and Notts County to boost the away numbers. At 17 per cent, not every season ticket holder from last season would get in. The fans lucky enough to get in to Blundell Park will have to make plenty of noise to make up for the rest of us.

The figures are sobering. Clubs will have survived lockdown by shutting up shop and minimising outgoings as best they could but that all ends when the season restarts. The covid testing that the club will have to do is estimated at £17,000 for pre-season and anything up to £3,000 a week once the season starts. That will come with severely reduced gate receipts and, initially, no food or drink sales.

There will be clubs that cannot afford to do this and to date there is no sign of a financial rescue package from the Football League. The skewed finances in English football make it all the more galling when you get the likes of Dale Vince tweeting about the start of the new season with a cool emoji. There are a few clubs that have achieved league status or have survived by being bank-rolled as a rich person’s toy. But there are far more in the bottom two divisions who just about survive, living hand-to-mouth, season to season. Without a decent rescue package and a more reliable iFollow offering we will be seeing more clubs in trouble.

UTM.