Cod Almighty | Diary

We may never be Duran Duran, and that's no bad thing

4 August 2021

Your A46 Diary has been in diary wilderness for a long time. Never prolific, the young diarist returns to see if he can shake the 'profligate' tag. Fat chance, the reader might say, already bored with prose neither purple nor poignant, not quite insipid and rarely insightful, but stuck somewhere in a no man's land of entrenched ideas-to-write-about: the team, the manager, the fans, the knees, the endless summer, the need to trust, to be hopeful, to be positive...

The team won 1-0 away at Alfreton last night. An early goal by John McAtee settled the game but didn't settle the pre-season jitters. We're at that stage, just shy of three weeks from the beginning of the season, where I want to see a settled side, a clear idea of where the goals will come from. Injuries and a lack of Ira Jackson have, however, meant that Town started with Edwin Essel in the middle of a front three. Add to that Hurst's admission that the squad must be strengthened and it's hard to not feel the optimism raised by the performance against Rotherham is slipping.

Maybe it's the fact that we can't get up a team for a game that was supposed to be played tonight but has had to be cancelled, or maybe it's the memories of last season's non-pre-season, or this interminable close season, but the jitters are growing into the kind of arse twitching usually reserved for bad CGI in cheap sci-fi-horror.

We have to trust in Hurst's decisions but Ira Jackson Jr's and George Williams' attempted release confuses me. I enjoyed McAtee’s performance in the middle of a front three against Rotherham. Williams' inclusion would have allowed that last night. Imagine Jackson on the bench. I don't get it and I'm at the point of not wanting to think about it because I'm powerless to affect it in anyway, but can't think about anything else.

So instead, let's talk film. I saw the Sparks Brothers the other night (Edgar Wright's documentary, not Ron and Russ Mael themselves) and was struck by the brothers' commitment to cooperation, to evolution, to moving on, to building something new rather than trying to repeat. I couldn't help but draw comparisons to this new GTFC. For the last two decades we've not cooperated, not moved on, not evolved. Worse, we've failed to repeat that little bit of success. So, when I say comparisons of the new GTFC to Sparks, what I actually mean is contrasts to the old GTFC.

This new club is still gestating, still forming itself. It won't be born until at least 10 games into the new season, and even that would be premature. Stockwood, in his interview in WSC, admits that results are everything and that all the B Corp talk in the world will not matter if Town have another first non-League season like the last one. A repeat of Braintree away and that 5-0 defeat will have many reaching for Chairman Fenty's favourite mantra: Since when did B Corp...

I won't finish that. I'm too on-board with these ideas. The B Corp statement on communities, fairness and responsibility already had me. On top of that, the use of the word "dignity", as in "the creation of more high quality jobs with dignity and purpose", is inspiring.

As well as film, let's talk books. The word Dickensian is usually used to describe the poverty-stricken slums of Dickens' London or the hideously and ridiculously cruel characters, inhuman and wicked, twisted out of shape, unrecognisable but something of us all within them. Fenty might have been described as Dickensian. The author's purpose was, however, to reveal poverty and to highlight the men behind the inequality, so perhaps Dickensian should be used to discuss the intention of the author and therefore could also be applied to B Corp values: is it Dickensian to demand dignity for all? It was certainly Dickensian in a traditional sense to make us suffer for two decades while aiming the promise of money (its insertion or withdrawal, take your pick) like a laser at our nether regions.

Apologies for flipping back to film and mixing references. Perhaps a better, more Dickensian, comparison would be Scrooge: he keeps his employee, Bob Cratchit, deliberately cold (no coal in his part of the office and not enough wages to buy a coat for himself) and makes sure he is aware that he should be grateful for having a job. He cares nothing for Bob or for Bob's family. He pays no more than might be expected for a clerk and he grudgingly hands over the tax he is forced to pay. Therefore, he's done his bit, need do no more and refuses to understand why more might be demanded of him. There is little human about Scrooge and he fails to see the humanity in others.

The Bond bad guy, Goldfinger, aims a laser at our hero's private parts, Bond tied and splayed on the table, facing the ultimate in emasculation. Scrooge and Goldfinger, both dehumanised, twisted into monstrous figures and therefore lacking dignity themselves, seek to remove their captives' dignity. Control is easier when the controlled do not see themselves as individuals with rights. Control is easier when the controlled have their dignity stripped. The word Dickensian should perhaps stand for the fight for dignity, for purpose, for recognition. There was precious little dignity in the club for two decades. There seems to be precious little dignity in football.

And that brings me back to Sparks; the brothers would change at seemingly the wrong time. At the height of punk they ditched their band and released an electronic album, at the height of electronic they went back to the band format. Always, they seemed to be one step ahead, a little too far ahead, and so acted as forerunners and others followed up with success. Sparks didn't get to be Duran Duran. But they did get longevity and their dignity remained.

GTFC are perhaps about to be forerunners. In a time when football is wallowing in its own greed, GTFC are trying to be something different, something, if not better, then at least more responsible, more dignified. Maybe that will mean that we only continue in obscurity, just an influence on others. Maybe those others will be recognised more easily than us and all we'll get is the longevity that dignity brings. So, yes, maybe Lincoln City will get to be Duran Duran, but right now, I don't care because my club is trying to be something more and I can’t wait to be a part of it when this close season finally ends.

I hope that Williams and Jackson are being treated with dignity. I hope that the negative fans, few as they are, will accept players taking the knee. I hope that Town build a team that can score goals.

At this point in the pre-season all we have is hope, all we can do is trust. And the club now strives for dignity, for purpose, for an identity it can be proud of. That's something I can be proud of, that's something that gives me hope and allows me to be positive. For now, that will do.