Cod Almighty | Diary

This year more than ever, B teams are the thin end of the wedge

8 September 2020

Tonight, there is a B-team trophy game. Needless to say, Casual Diary won't be watching. Not because of the poor quality of Saturday's iFollow coverage. Nor because manager Ian Holloway has stated the side will feature the same kids I've already paid to watch at Brigg and Cleethorpes (which otherwise I'd say was a bit odd, as on Saturday we looked short of match fitness.) No, nothing has changed since last season and I've still no interest in a competition including reserve teams.

There will be those who say the club needs all the cash it can get in these strange times. To me it is not a valid argument. Until Holloway's interview on Saturday suggested that the players had not in fact taken a 25 per cent pay cut after the PFA got involved, I had believed that everyone except board members had contributed to keeping the club going. Now it appears it is just the supporters.

Since I wrote about the issue last week, the point has been made that the club have to prevent the selling on of season tickets to support track and trace and the maintenance of social bubbles. It is an argument that would have more force if it weren't for the fact that you can inform the club you cannot attend a game, and they will sell on the ticket, without passing the money on to the ticket holder. Presumably the club will collect the details they need to comply with Covid-19 requirements, but is there any reason the season ticket holder couldn't do that and pass on the information? At the very least, they could offer to split the proceeds from re-sale.

The club is not alone in facing difficult financial times. If a fan is prepared to stump up £350 in August for a ticket to games they look increasingly unlikely to be able to watch, with no prospect of a refund, this would seem the least the club could do to reward its "excellent" support. No one should be surprised they aren't.

This leads to another question. How much input, if any, did the supporters representatives on the board have on this? If they supported it, why? If not, how was their dissent voiced? Amid all the to and fro of Holloway's arrival, the anti-Fenty protests, the Shutes' bid, and the curtailing of last season, it seems forgotten that they sit there to represent us. They do so because we handed over a large shareholding gifted to the Mariners Trust. It doesn't sit well with me that the information coming from the representative back to trust members is virtually nil. Every board meeting is presumably minuted. As the supporters have contributed so much both in the form of the shareholding and in outside fundraising activities why do we not get to see the minutes? At the very least the Trust should be issuing a statement as to the stance they take on major issues and the reasons behind it.

The Anthony Limbrick situation is another case in point. If he is still on furlough because he is unwilling to move to the area, or because Holloway wants to bring in his own assistant manager, I am sure supporters would be happy to accept that. However, if it's another cost-cutting exercise while the board continue their policy of taking out what we are putting in, that's a different matter. If they do so with the complicity of our representative is unacceptable.

UTM