Cod Almighty | Diary

The rock and the hard place

28 August 2020

Middle-Aged Diary does not fancy being on the board of the next club needing to appoint a new manager, or being the manager applying for the job. Alongside the usual questions about experience, coaching qualifications and playing philosophy, you nowadays also need a good understanding of epidemiology, public health and decision-making in national and local government.

As Trentside Diary and the Twitter thread it inspired have highlighted, Grimsby Town are taking an approach that puts safeguarding the club's financial security above other considerations: we are not gambling on signing players just because they are available now, and we won't sign them in any case unless they agree to a clause to protect the club against a further lockdown. Other clubs are pursuing a different approach, but that carries huge risks.

It is tempting to say that, with no one watching, the coming season will suit the bores who insist that "It's a results business." But this time it might not even be a results business: the league table could end up being determined by the same dodgy statistics which earlier this month determined that no Grimsby teenager could possibly be as worthy of a university place as a kid from Surrey who goes to a private school.

We could have a season determined by points deductions, or we might have the Football League backing away from the protests of umpteen clubs in administration, annulling points deductions in the face of 'unprecedented circumstances' and leaving the clubs which have tried to play by the rules to totter into non-League with their emaciated squads. The season may not be won by the best players with the best coaches but by the best lobbyists and lawyers.

We can't say the club have got it right - we won't know that for months - but we can say they are acting sensibly, even morally. Can we sell season tickets when we don't know when, if ever, we'll be able to admit fans, and when our capacity may even be below the number of season ticket holders from last season?

However, the season ticket is not just a way of guaranteeing your seat at Blundell Park at the best price: it is a mark of commitment and it entitles the bearer to write to the Telegraph claiming the current team is the worst since they started kicking pigs' bladders about in medieval times. If 2020-21 season tickets will also allow access to matches on iFollow, perhaps the club could find a way of allowing the fans who want to show their support to pay a kind of deposit on a season ticket, with such benefits as go with it until the ground is open again?

The show must go on, they say, apparently even when there is no one there to watch it. Sure enough, I've just taken a call from someone enquiring after the accident I was involved with that wasn't my fault. Not just the show, but the whole treadmill must go on, creating no real satisfaction but grinding out a wage and a profit for someone, until we find the voice to say that community football clubs, among other things, should be protected from storms far bigger than they can ever withstand alone.

The manager who knows their public health as well as their football does not exist. The problem of running the game in these times is bigger than the game. The Football Supporters Association has started up a campaign to ensure the sport is sustainable: due credit that Grimsby Town are one of relatively few League clubs to have signed up to it. If we aren't rethinking now, we may never do.

Have a good weekend.