Martin’s Shaken and Stirred

It seems that my pre-season pessimism was not completely unfounded. The Chairman has since proved to be the swindling swine I’d hoped he wouldn’t be. It turns out you do need to replace your defenders if they leave. And not paying any of your staff does wonders for morale. With relegation looming there are few positive notes to take from this season. Supporting a team at this level really is a rollercoaster ride, but I don’t remember it being much lower than this.

Let’s start with the off-the-field shenanigans shall we? The troubles seem to have come from trying to get the finances together for a new stadium. The Chairman has my sympathies here as no one had predicted how much the economy would slump. However, there are examples of other teams that seemed to have coped perfectly well in these conditions and have actually thrived in them. It pains me to say it but we need to look at Colchester United as an example of how to run a club. With half the gate we get they’ve managed to build a new stadium, get a play-off challenging squad together and have enough surplus playing staff that they can bail out their local misfits by loaning players out.

I love my club to bits but as an organisation it’s a complete mess. From Season Cards not functioning correctly to the failure to organise eight people around a table in the Blues lounge. All these basic things that shouldn’t be an issue always have been. It needs someone with a bit of know-how to come in and review everything the club is doing and turn it on its head. On Saturday I learned that The Groundsman’s bar is actually run by the brewery, another revenue stream turned away. Everything at the club seems to have been done to make a quick buck without any forethought into long-term revenue!

They’ve made some good marketing campaigns. I loved the shareholder brochures and the season card renewal booklets. And the little things like the Christmas Card and the Birthday letters are all nice touches. This year’s birthday letter wasn’t on the usual nice-headed paper though, which to be honest I’d rather they saved their stamp money. I’ve recently started following the club shop on Twitter. On the first game they were meant to send a half-time offer, I didn’t receive this because of ‘technical difficulties’. It’s a Tweet for crying out loud! It takes literally 3 seconds to do from any smartphone.

I showed my concern after the game on Saturday by joining the 100-strong protests. Ron Martin has since organised a Q & A this Monday. I fear that this PR Guru will manage to avoid any of the meaningful questions by spinning some legal/financial spiel.

Martin out!