The Bristol Post announces tonight that you can “follow the action and build-up from the Memorial Stadium as Bristol Rovers host Yeovil Town in the EFL Trophy.” If you don’t have any hair to wash or paint to watch dry, you might jet do that. But one thing you should consider – in my own humble opinion – is whether to support this wretched excuse for a football tournament. Lest we forget that the former Paint Pot Trophy was solely for third and fourth tier clubs, but for some reason the Football League invited certain Premier League and Championship clubs to include their Under 23 teams and they have ruined it.
I can understand the idea behind the original Paint Pot trophy. It was to allow lower league clubs to make money. This year, with crowds in free fall, clubs like ours have actually lost money. That is a very bad thing, regardless of the fact that Rovers are now owned by Jordanian millionaires (billionaires?). But if you take the piss, as we football fans call it, this is what happens.
I have a patchy, that is to say non-existent, record of watching early EFL cup games anyway, on the grounds that I couldn’t care less about them. Even a fiver for a ticket seems outrageously expensive when you are watching a game in a tournament that is now utterly meaningless. It is one thing to miss out on the early rounds, but there is no way on earth I will watch another EFL cup game this season, or indeed until the Football League restore it to what it was before.
Get to and then pack Wembley and what sort of signal does that send to the League? It certainly doesn’t say that we are appalled by the way administrators tinker with the national game without even the most basic consultation with the poor bloody idiots who pay to get in. No, I’m avoiding the whole damn thing this season.
We have even had a degree of leadership from the Supporters Club who have expressed their disgust about the new format and certain might boycott games. Indeed, the Supporters club’s daughter in law wrote a fierce condemnation in a recent programme article.
I am sorry to be saying this really since Rovers’ new owners certainly have their hearts and heads (and cheque books) in the right place. I don’t really want to punish them for the folly of others, but what else can we do?
I suspect the bureaucrats know full well they have cocked up this season and will perform a U turn next summer, noting the anger of the fans and apologising to them. (Actually, I think they’ll simply say it was an experiment that didn’t work and leave it at that. Football rarely does apologies, does it?)
I’m not going tonight and I will not be following the action anywhere at all. I’m not calling for a boycott, I’m just saying it’s a crap tournament now the Football League have arsed around with it and if you want this Frankenstein experiment to end you know what to do.
