A January to forget

Like the Pilot song, January – sick and tired, you’ve been hanging on me. This has definitively been a January to forget. I had written a very upbeat blog just after Birmingham, but completely forget to click that publish button. Thank God I didn’t, as reading it back now, after those terrible decisions TC made yesterday, I would have looked a complete Monk, sorry fool.

This has unfortunately all stemmed from the mistake of fielding a weaker side against Newport County. You would have thought that after the buzz phrase of the decade “lessons have been learned”, has been hammered round from successive Government failures/NHS and banking crises/police f**k-ups over the last 15 years, someone would have taken a bit of notice.

Sadly not. So this is my letter. A letter that I would send if I thought the Club had any sense of humour, dignity,decorum, faith, honour in traditions etc.etc.etc . However, I think that our Club, along with the rest of the 72 other football league clubs have about as much respect for our footballing history and  traditions, as they have for the fans that pay their hard earned cash, and give up their time to travel to watch their team around the country.

Please see the section from FA Cup website ( I will attempt to attach the PDF of this just in case anyone wants to read the full rules). I had no idea that a football club has to actually apply to compete (in the loosest possible terms of my understanding of “compete”) in the FA Cup.

A Club wishing to participate in the Competition must complete the application and payment
process on or before 1 April in the season previous to the season in which such Club
proposes to compete in the Competition. A Club that is either a Full or Associate Member
of The Association who fail to pay The Association’s Membership subscriptions by 1 August
may be subject to removal from the Competition.

 

Dear (insert as appropriate) Football Club

The closing date for your application to play in next season’s FA Cup is looming.

Please can I request that if you are  not intending to FULLY participate in the competition, please do not bother to send in your application form.

If you have little or no respect for the history and the traditions of the oldest football tournament in the world, please do not waste your time.

If you intend on making 10 changes from your league side,  fielding your 2nd/3rd and/or youth team players, entering this competition would be a pointless exercise.

If you cannot see the value of using the Cup ties as an opportunity to develop your squad players, practice new playing systems and configurations, and see these games as a distraction from the more important league games, please desist.

If you cannot see the benefits of beating a lower league side comprehensively, both in the confidence boost from scoring and winning, and increasing the goal tally for the season, you are best to avoid the Cup.

If you choose to ignore the fact that there may be a boost to the Club revenue from full house cup ties from ticket sales and the subsequent merchandise/ retail outlets /catering streams income, that is your choice.

If you cannot acknowledge the importance of the fan experience at both home and away games, and realise that the fans that travel round the country are just as, if not more valuable, than the ones that watch on which ever random television channel decides it wants to inconvenience the travelling fans with, that is your perogative.

If this is your approach, we look forward to not receiving your application.

However, if you were simply concerned that you were going to miss the Royal wedding and had already applied for your street party licence, I fully understand. After all , moving the kick off til 5.30pm, just simply isn’t enough time to enjoy the full day of celebrations with Harry and Megan.

Yours truly

A football fan from days gone by