Cod Almighty | Diary

Stuck well to the left of centre with you

13 October 2022

Middle-Aged Diary hates to break it to you, but have you ever considered the possibility that the football authorities might just be a little bit stupid?

The Football League (calling itself the EFL is a minor part of the evidence) are willing to propose scrapping the Saturday 3pm blackout on broadcasting their matches. It isn't their decision, so it may not go anywhere, as long as the Football Association remembers it is meant to represent the interests of non-League clubs as well as the top flight. It seems the League's arm is being twisted by clubs in the second tier. (The fact that all the divisions of the professional game now have names which are meaningless, if not dishonest, is another piece of evidence.)

We don't know which empty vessels are making most noise but some in the second division apparently feel that their "product" is being "undervalued", and presumably they don't much care what happens to clubs in the third and fourth divisions. Now you read Cod Almighty. You can think from A to B. You know that if the pretentiously-titled "Championship" gets a deal allowing it to show games at 3pm on a Saturday in year X, then in year X+1 they won't have a leg to stand on when the actual top-flight clubs renegotiate their deal and include 3pm matches in their mix. Then in year X+2 when the Football League goes back to the broadcasters, they will find that their product is now grossly overvalued.

Some clubs it seems are wilfully turning their backs on the one thing that makes them strong: their emotional bond with their community. Have you ever watched a cheaply broadcast lower-league game in which you hardly care who wins? Way back, ITV used to show the odd one on a Sunday afternoon. It was moving wallpaper, good only for sleeping off a Sunday roast.

Weird how, when "team sport" is widely used in business jargon to signify the need to work together, an actual team sport is acting like a wannabe Apprentice contestant. It is the fallacy of the age: that if people make selfish choices it impacts only on themselves. After the pandemic, you'd like to think we had grown out of such childishness.

Let's not despair. In a world away from "products" and "valuations" (although not from values) people still remember this is a sport, and the Mariners if not going strong are at least going stonger than they have for some years. Last weekend, as well as the first team's underwhelming win over Crawley, the women's team and the under-18s both won. The under-18s won again yesterday to go top of their league. The future may or may not be bright, but whatever stupidity there is around us, we'll continue to carve out a space for all our selves.