Allow me to let you into a secret. I was never really much of a fan of the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy, AKA the Paint Pot Trophy. It was a nice little money-spinner for clubs who progressed to the latter stages and a nice day out at Wembley, or in my case Cardiff, for the finalists. It was nice beating Bristol City too to reach the final, but in the grand scheme of things, I didn’t really give a toss. Now the Football League have done their best to kill it off altogether by allowing some Premier League and Championship clubs to enter their Under 21 teams. It’s completely meaningless now.
The English Football League Trophy (EFL) is no longer a knock out competition for the two bottom divisions. It’s a kind of hybrid, the principle of it sacrificed for reasons way behind my level of comprehension.
Many Premier League clubs, including most of the biggest ones, have told the Football League where to get off with the EFL trophy. They have taken the decision that there is nothing to gain from putting their best youngsters into a third and fourth tier tournament when instead they can play in the Under 21 Premier League and they are, very obviously, right. I only wish lower league clubs could have told the Football League the same.
With 46 league games to play, plus, hopefully, cup runs in the tournaments that really matter and I’d suggest that the players at my club, Bristol Rovers, have quite enough football thank you very much. With the reserve team being restored to competitive football in the Central League (well done to Steve Hamer and the board for that one), our younger players will get high class opposition teams to play against on a regular basis. No one stands to gain anything from a pointless tournament that is compulsory for lower league clubs and discretionary for the top clubs. The Football League might as well have made it an invitational cup tournament anyway, except that if they had, no one would have bothered to enter.
In the sense of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, the Paint Pot Trophy was doing okay as it was. Everyone knew who was in it, everyone knew why they were in it. Now the EFL trophy is a nonsense. Whoever wins it will have won what, exactly? Not the 3rd and 4th division cup but the 3rd and 4th division cup, plus whoever fancies it from the top divisions.
If you still wonder why English football is in a mess, then the EFL trophy is a prime illustration as to why. The idea that football is still the people’s game died once Rupert Murdoch got his hands on the game. Idiotic decisions that end up with a Frankenstein monster of a tournament, which involved not even the smallest consultation with the terrace proletariat, reduce the game to farce.
The Football League plus a few Premier and Championship Under 21 sides in the EFL? No thanks, not this year, not ever.
