Cod Almighty | Article
by Various
9 January 2018
The Cod Almighty Board of Governors is committed to throwing more good money after bad to distract attention from our rubbish appointments
To our readers,
Cod Amighty's Ivory Tower Board of Governors met yesterday – unscheduled, last minute and disorganised – to discuss a number of writing and operational matters. The board wish to place on record how disappointed they are with recent articles and the unfunny nature of those articles. The readership are the lifeblood of our fanzine, even if we did blame them for our inability to attract new investment only two months ago, and have every right to express concern following such a poor showing. Quite frankly – we all expect better.
This has led to some calling for a change in the senior leadership of Cod Almighty.
The board met yesterday and voted - with much ennui - to support the existing editorial team in the current 'dry January' window and throughout the summer to continue their rebuilding of the site.
The editorial team has also set out a clear vision to the board to continue rebuilding the website towards a pithier, wittier but higher quality content fanzine, reducing it in size whilst increasing the quality over the next six months.
We can today announce that the fanzine have recouped their initial investments in Tony Butcher (the board place on record their disappointment with how this has turned out - despite our best efforts to retain the abstruse match reporter) as he returns to the website from where he joined us. There will be further departures throughout this month and in the summer.
The board have always provided support to the fanzine and the additions of Tommy of the Town and the Unofficial Official Calendar will be followed by others. There is an intention to add some quality articles to improve our fanzine output, whilst removing articles that do not fit within the editorial team's plans for the site. We are committed to bringing the jokes and the buzz back to Cod Almighty. We have decided to inject beer to help the editorial team improve the site - whether that is through new additions or a reduction in size - to ensure our fanzine as funny as others.
The editors are as disappointed as we all are at the dip in humour particularly after three classic Tommy strips on the bounce. It is gut wrenching that we haven't built on this form. They are determined to make adjustments to the content which they believe will bring back the jokes and more interesting articles so that we can enjoy reading the diary while on the shitter at work or during boring team meetings.
The editorial team is vastly experienced. They continue to increase and improve the unprofessionalism of Cod Almighty and implement their slack ethos throughout the site. This ethos has somehow seen them employed by several high-profile media outlets throughout their careers. They are meticulous in their preparations (for the pub) and are well-respected (in the pub). However, they have also inherited content largely written by others with many overly-wordy, badly thought-out articles in the archives. It is clear that our fanzine is in transition and we ask readers to remain patient.
While some of this rebuilding took place the other summer it is not always something that can be completed overnight. When you lose big characters like Guest Diary and Retro Diary as we have over the past 18 months and have lots of new faces, it takes time for things to gel together and have that desired effect.
The board genuinely believe, whilst there have been and will be further bumps in the road, that they will ensure that we acquiesce as we find our feet back in the online world of League fanzines and build a site that is capable of challenging the competition. While the board accepts that there have been examples of some fanzines winning online awards and building on that success through momentum, there are also many examples where fanzines have been expanded and done far worse than we are doing now. Like ImpsTalk.
Whilst Popular STAND and West Stand Bogs are now rising in popularity, this has taken them many years to do so competitively. Likewise Black and White Corner, released not long after us and having been through several iterations are now nowhere to be seen. Similarly, one only has to look at how ImpsTalk fared in their first season with the big boys to know that middling along – mostly being right miserable bastards, but still occasionally making you laugh with a hastily thrown together comic strip – isn't what we had hoped for, but it also isn't the complete disaster promoted by some.
The fanzine needs stability right now and the board are asking the readers to be even more patient and get behind the editorial team, fanzine and writers as we continue this rebuilding process back to being funny again.
The editors and the writing team are continuing to "work" to bring back the jokes, intelligent writing and success to the fanzine. However this will only be possible with the support and backing of our readers. Our fanzine has been through much worse than this before and come out the other side stronger - well, it’s come out the other side. Or end. Together we are stronger and the only way we can make Cod Almighty that familiar cosy, Grauniad-eating, Corbynista, echo-chamber safe-space is by continuing to read and agreeing with everything we write. The writers need us to show that support starting with tomorrow's diary - we owe it to the fanzine we all love by putting our differences aside to unite together.
Let's show that relentless support for the fanzine that has seen us recognised nationally in the very, very, distant past and here's to bringing the jokes, intelligence and good writing back to Cod Almighty!
UTM.
Mark, Pat, Pete, Peter & Rich
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