Cod Almighty | Diary
Three little birds told me
1 August 2024
Today’s diary was due to cover any noteworthy events that occurred in last night’s pre-season friendly at Alfreton. That match, of course, never took place. The club apologised, but unless your West Yorkshire Diary has missed it — and I do tend to go living under rocks from time to time — no official reason for the cancellation was given by the club, leaving fans to speculate that we either didn’t have enough fit players to field a competitive team, or the game shouldn’t have been arranged in the first place given we were playing Rotherham just 24 hours earlier.
We all know the purpose of pre-season. We all know results don’t matter. Team building, tactics, fitness. That’s what it’s all about. Best make the mistakes now and learn from them, before the real business begins — when fans become more vocal and even less forgiving.
Not that our brilliant support is affording much margin to the situation now. Last time I popped some words on here, we’d just won our first three friendlies and everything was right with the world. Just a couple more quality signings in key areas and HMS Piss The League could’ve been rolled out again with no apparent satire.
But then there followed two desperately poor showings against non-league opposition, and the only acquisitions we made were injuries. And so now HMS Piss The League lies with the Lincoln Castle.
Our 21st century social media savvy fanbase expects to be spoon-fed content, and they don’t even care if it’s diarrhoea. Something is better than nothing in this world of meaningless tat — unless that something is bad news, or a bad result, which, let’s be honest, it often is. And suddenly we’d rather not know.
The club is damned if it does and damned if it doesn’t. Fenty never let things go cold, often filling any void with lengthy ill-thought-through splurges of self-serving hypocritical nonsense, using each opportunity to take all the credit, none of the blame, and aiming sideswipes at the fans that ultimately lined his pockets and meant he could walk away from his time on the board with all his benign loans returned and a healthy pension.
Perhaps the club is not yet in a position to engage fans online in a purposeful way. Its social media feeds might be lacking where other ‘smaller’ clubs are excelling, but the question must be asked: to what end? We’ve just sold over five thousand season tickets on the back of a hugely disappointing season. As far as engagement goes, that’s possibly the most telling statistic.
Just over a year ago, Jason Stockwood wrote an article in the Guardian about taking emotion out of decisions. This was said in the context of player recruitment. We all know the club’s strategy by now and, I think it’s fair to say, it bore some fruit last season with the signing (and double-quick sale) of Kamil Conteh.
Jason talked about System 1 and System 2 thinking — where System 1 is quick, reactive, immediate, and System 2 is deliberative and analytical. Football, he says, is predominantly played with System 1, and players are bought and trained for this reality. System 2 seeks to slow things down and remove natural biases by looking more methodically at the bigger picture and deciding a route to take.
It isn’t wrong for our fanbase to be asking questions. Many of them have become predictable and tedious, but the ferociousness of deep concern has surfaced far more readily this summer than perhaps in any other that’s preceded it. Fans live in a System 1 environment — although, this summer, Grimsby fans would’ve likely led the psychologist Daniel Kahneman to have theorised the possible existence of a System 0.1.
Our partnership with Twenty First Group is unique for our level of football, as is the ten-year plan Gareth Jennings is helping to write. With so much deep strategic work going on below the waterline, it can be hard to see progress on the surface, especially if you have wafer-thin patience, so you have to dive a little deeper to find it.
What you ultimately find is a catalogue of improvements that support the people, infrastructure and fan experience. The removal of the Main Stand posts is a case in point; it won’t help us win three points on a Saturday — it’ll certainly help more fans see it when it happens — but when you combine it with all the little changes 1878 have introduced or carried out over the last three years, the cumulative effect is that, more than likely, they will help us win those three points on a Saturday. Or on a Thursday night, whatever suits Sky.
So, we can worry about pre-season. We can worry about finding ourselves 17th in November. What we don’t need to worry about is the state of the club. That’s in good hands. And even if it doesn’t work out with Artell, the foundations are in place so that someone will inevitably deliver success this town (and area) has craved for so long.
Those beautiful moments wouldn’t feel so glorious without the toil. Keep the faith and UTM!