Cod Almighty | Diary

Losing my religion

15 April 2020

Miss Guest Diary writes: While we are in the midst of a global pandemic where thousands have died in the UK and hundreds of thousands more are struggling to feed themselves due to loss or reduction of their income, writing a jaunty piece about Town feels like the blogging equivalent of fiddling while Rome burns. I just can't do it.

Instead, I have been considering the possible demise of the current football season in the light of my 15 years' experience as a bereavement support volunteer.  

Most people have probably heard of the theory that there are five stages to grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. There is some truth in this model – though what many people don't know is that it was originally put forward in relation to someone facing a terminal illness. So, these predicted feelings were not for something already lost but for the life the person was about to lose.

I have learned over the years that mourning a loss is not a linear process: these emotional stages can come repeatedly, in any order, last for different lengths of time and some can be skipped altogether. Although, generally speaking, there is denial at first and, for some people, it can last a very long time.

This football season may already be dead or it may simply be in a coma from which it will be awakened later in the year. But, judging by the avalanche of old games being reshown and rehashed on TV, streaming services and social media and the playing of virtual tournaments on FIFA, we are all still firmly stuck in the denial phase and a long way from any kind of acceptance.

What is essential to accepting a loss is recognising that things can never go back to the way they were before: what we in 'the trade' call finding a new normal.

Maybe for the bigger clubs the new normal will eventually look very much like the old one. But not in the short term. Until this virus is well and truly conquered, it's hard to imagine any sensible person wanting to crowd into a ground with thousands of strangers breathing down their necks. And if matches have to be played behind closed doors for an extended period of time, then they might as well be simulated on a computer.

For clubs at the bottom of the football pyramid, it may be that it's not just this season which is dead. With no income from ticket sales or other match day revenue, many clubs in the lower tiers of the League will be struggling to service their debts. Yes, the Premier League has agreed to advance £123 million to the Football League, but this won't be divided evenly between the 71 clubs.

Apparently, clubs in the fourth tier will get a mere 3 per cent of the pot, which works out at around £150,000 each. For even the most financially frugal clubs, this will be a mere drop in the ocean – and anyway it's only an advance of solidarity payments, parachute payments and academy grants, not a gift or a bail out. How many of the 71 will still be in business when football resumes?

And what of Town? Your guess is as good as mine. The only news I could find about the club's financial status was the statement made by Philip Day last month that Town were "financially sound". But that was when he believed the season would resume on 3 April and we are way past that pipe dream.

It seems unthinkable that our new normal could be a world without Town, but then a lot of 'unthinkable' things have been happening of late. UTMM.