Cod Almighty | Diary
Loose lips sink ships
17 August 2020
Miss Guest Diary writes: I suspect that most people don't know that if they get wound up about something and write to a government minister to complain any response they receive will have been drafted by a lowly civil servant. Many years ago I was that civil servant. The minister's reply must indicate awareness of the facts and full engagement with the issue without expressing an opinion or promising to take any action. After one such exchange, the complainant wrote back saying that the minister's letter had been "a masterpiece of non-answer". When my boss saw this he congratulated me on having "cracked it".
What has this to do with Town, I hear you mutter. Well, listening to our Ollie's interview with Matt Dean at the weekend put me in mind of this. I won't bother providing a link because I can tell you that, in terms of letting us know what the future might hold for Town, Ollie is certainly expert at saying nothing in a really jovial way. Are any more players going to be signed? Who is currently on trial with the club? How many positions need filling? What positions is he looking to fill? Nothing. It was all very friendly, but by the end Matt Dean was answering his own questions in the negative. A master class of non-answer indeed.
The only things we did learn were what isn't going to happen. Town are not going to sign Omar Bogle or Charlie Adam and Burnley are unlikely to let us have Glennon or Benson back on loan. Oh, and Cleethorpes Town next Saturday might be Town's only pre-season friendly. As with all league football in England at the moment, the game will be played behind closed doors. It will apparently be available to live stream, but that really is no substitute for attending.
That you can currently sit in a cinema or a restaurant or a pub or walk around an art gallery but you can't stand in a field with a few dozen others seems illogical. This view is being echoed up and down the country by clubs in the lower reaches of the football pyramid with the Let Fans In campaign. Seeing several hundred people sitting in the Crucible Theatre watching the snooker – with no masks on – at the weekend, makes this situation seem doubly unfair and irrational.
I could find no recent definitive government statements on when fans can attend games, but the consensus seems to be possibly the beginning of October. Some clubs, like Lincoln, sold season tickets in February and are now selling more, but with the proviso that holders will not be able to attend every game due to social distancing restrictions on seating. Who gets to see a match will be decided by ballot on a match by match basis.
If, as has been suggested, the numbers permitted will be around 30 per cent of ground capacity that would allow around 2,700 fans at Blundell Park. As that's pretty much the level of Town season tickets sold in recent years, that would mean getting to see every home game. But that is hard luck for the fan who cannot afford a season ticket or does shift work or for those who don't live in the area and make the occasional pilgrimage to see the mighty Mariners. Maybe it would be fairer to keep back some of the seats to sell on a match by match basis. I'm glad I don't have the responsibility for squaring that circle.
We have to wait until Friday for the League fixtures to come out, but the draw for the Football League Trophy – or as we like to call it, the Boycott Cup – takes place tomorrow, with the first round games on the 8th or 9th September. The big question is: how can we boycott a game that we are not legally permitted to attend. A sort of Schrödinger's Boycott. Any ideas?
And finally, one fan will definitely be allowed into Blundell Park on 4 October. Now that the London Marathon is closed to anyone but elite runners, James Whaley will be running the equivalent of a marathon around the pitch to raise money for a children's charity. I just really wish he didn't feel the need to wear a half-Lincoln, half-Town shirt. UTMM