Cod Almighty | Diary

Let me throw a couple of things into your ideas wok

13 June 2024

From last night's Grimsby-centric TV, and everything else in the last decade, it is pretty obvious to your Guest Diarist that the general population has had it with party politics of any colour. All these clever words, disingenuous numbers, empty promises and sheer patronising we-know-besting has reduced all of us to bitter untrusting cynics. But no-one has any idea what to do about it have they?

As for football, we are equally fucked. The big clubs, who got that way from old money, splash-the-cash new investment or both, have fans who are bitter about having to sell players or indulge in P&L trickery to meet fairly phony financial regulations. The middle clubs are hanging on to league position in quiet desperation whilst firefighting a rising tsunami of operating debt. The little clubs just pray they get a fan rich enough to subsidise club survival, sometimes at the expense of having to endure the foibles of owner fiefdom. And that is us.

I read the second part of the Jason Stockwood interview again at the crack of dawn this morning having slept on it. Tony Butcher, for me, comes out of it exceptionally well whether talking about football style, club aspirations or finance. The questions were, short, accurate and sometimes brutal. Being brutal myself, and probably a lone voice here, Jason reminds me in part of Gus from Drop the Dead Donkey and in part of My Perfect Cousin. My jaundiced brain sees him hovering at recruitment sessions, invisibly steering 'the team' while reciting the mantra 'remember, I'm not here'. Simultaneously I am having to google 'inflexion point' (I think it is inflection point actually). Gentle reader, I think Jason means we reached that point on the invisible graph where summat had to change. Ten years ago people said tipping point but the world moves on, don't it? New language always makes everything sound more exciting, more relevant, old problems just dissolve in its vocabulary; the new frontier.

Trying to make our football club fit the mind's eye model seems impossible to me. It is simply too expensive. Everywhere you look it is six- and seven-figure spends. Nice pitch last season, shame about the football. Don't worry the pitch is gonna be even better next season. A bit better view from the Main, the Ponny roof fixed while the sun was shining, better data and the means to analyse it - the list goes on and on. Fabulous stuff all round. The only problem is the accounts.

The club is spending way beyond its means. Most clubs do that but more by wasting money on failed transfer acquisitions. We are doing all the right things but we can't afford them and are totally reliant on owner philanthropy. Bringing new investors in and using their money just to prop up the coming season's expense overruns, to maintain the 'going concern' might work this year but what about in five years time when the philanthropy slows? The rebuttal might be - we will get a better settlement eventually and money will flow down the pyramid to us. But you can bet your bottom dollar that cash will dissipate fast - wage inflation will gobble it up. Whatever we have will never be enough. What would Gus say? Let's jump on the hedonic treadmill.

Don't get me wrong - we have probably never had better owners and probably never will. Their commitment, enthusiasm and generosity to both the club and the town knows no bounds. But they are choosing to ignore the long-term sustainability of the club - the goal of break-even seems to have been erased. The fans can do little more - they buy their season tickets in great numbers even when the entertainment has been poor, they buy their merchandise, they travel the length and breadth of the country season after season. But the club spends ever faster - the train it won't stop going, no way to slow down. See yer.