Premiership Aspirations

By: Rob Sedgwick
Date: 04/08/2000

Premiership Aspirations

At a time when Town look least likely promotion contenders, David Peasgood finds Bert and Fred this week pondering that age old chestnut, "Can Town afford promotion anyway?" Hear their views and YOU decide in our latest 'fishy' poll.

Can Town afford promotion anyway?

BERT:
If Town ever made the premiership it'd be a disaster for the club and the team.

FRED:
That is a ridiculous statement. If town went up we'd sell out every game for a year, see some great matches, and make about 12 million quid from TV money.

BERT:
Be realistic. Look at Charlton and Barnsley, or even Watford and Bradford this year. We'd be straight back down after one season.

FRED:
Maybe we would but it'd be a great season.

BERT:
Getting stuffed week in week out isn't great in my books. Premiership wages would eat a huge chunk from the money you got and when you came back down you'd still have big wages but be back to low gates. Bankruptcy recipe if you ask me.

FRED:
Relegated teams get 2 million a year for 2 years from the TV money, to help them readjust to Nationwide soccer.

BERT:
Yeah but eventually the wages outstrip the income. In fact it already does at town in this division. Then there's the loss of players. Once they've sampled the premiership and maybe put themselves in the shop window they could easily be lost to the club.

FRED:
But you have to be ambitious.

BERT:
You have to be sensible. If town could have afforded promotion to the top then don't you think the board would have gone for it by now? Whenever we look good then suddenly there's no cash for back-up players and a distinct lack of enthusiasm.

FRED:
That's old boards for you. Poor men in rich suits scared of success in case it cost them their own money. This new board might be OK.

BERT:
Admit it Fred. It's just a dream. Grimsby is a tiny outpost with an iffy ground and poor gates. It can't handle premiership soccer. We'd be a media joke.

FRED:
Wimbledon managed on 5000 to 7000 a week at one stage and Grimsby is growing all the time. We may one day have a new stadium, and folk would travel from Hull and Scunny to see top division games. The media might even like us.

BERT:
Have you considered that if we went up, then all the tickets would be snapped up as season tickets by businesses and folk who don't normally go to matches, and us with our pensions who can only pay weekly wouldn't be able to get tickets.

FRED:
That's got nowt to do with whether the Club can afford to go up. I say we go for it and get some cash in the bank, even if it's only for one year. It'd boost the stadium fund.

BERT:
Well I don't. I'd rather stay as a comfy fish in a comfy sized pond than be a stickleback in a shark pool. What's them lot reckon out there?

Now for the vote...

Can Town afford promotion anyway?