Cod Almighty | Diary

How! How! How! How!

1 May 2025

White rabbits, gentle reader, white rabbits! Some say the season only starts in March but it definitely ends in May. How late in May depends on whether the team and the crowd turn up and make it a full-blooded ninety minute cup final. The intentions are good but whether we fizzle like a Chinese snooker player when the going gets tough and the spotlights are blinding we will have to see.

Personally, and being totally honest, getting into the playoffs will be great for the fans and great cash-wise, but the prospect of third division football with this squad fills me with dread. Prove me wrong by all means but with so much club cash having to be spent on things other than the squad and having read that player salaries in the third division average over 30% higher...well it is not a hopeful recipe is it?

I have wondered over many years how Town, like every other club, manages to spend more than they earn. Fenty kept lending us money, kept wasting it on bad decisions and vanity ideas, then wanted it all back. Our new owners know that money invested is merely philanthropy but still claim sustainabiity 'sometime' in the future. After a few years shovelling money into the Town engine box they tapped up a couple of rich folk who didn't mind burning a few quid. But it can't go on forever. Or can it? Losing £1.5m or whatever it was and claiming a bottom third playing budget with over 5,000 season ticket holders is just flabbergasting. Sandy Denny asked who knows where the time goes? I ask where does the money go?

I know. I picked the wrong week to talk this heavy downbeat stuff. The sun is shining, the chicks are fledging, the veg is growing. The owners are fixing the roof while the sun is shining. Everyone (including me) is mad for Saturday. So what I am gonna do right now is play some Chuck Berry, some John Lee Hooker and some really early Stones real loud and get back in the right mood. Another time I'll tell you about the time I was lucky enough to meet Mr Hooker. Quite a guy! See yer.