Dear Football Fans.....
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Dear Football Fans, Yes, I know - yet another football club is on the rocks, and of course it's up to all of you to bail us out. It's the way it goes these days, and I don't blame you for feeling a bit apathetic about Macclesfield Town's current plight. But since you've made it this far, you might as well take a couple of minutes to hear our case, because what has happened to this club should raise fundamental concerns about the suitability of the Football Association to run the game, even if you decide that best wishes are all you can offer us. Allow me to explain. On Monday morning, Macc Town were a club with strong links to the community, who, despite a lowly League ranking and small attendances, had as bright a future as any other club in the League. By 4pm, they became a club on the verge of extinction. I won't bore you with the details, but Macc Town were charged by the FA of misusing a Football Foundation grant which paid for a new stand. At no point did the money go near the playing staff, and the club gained no competitive advantage (no points were docked). Our current board (which bears no relation to the board of 4 years ago which committed the offences) plead guilty to those charges, and they were fully co-operative with the FA at every stage of the investigation. Naturally, we were mainly optimistic about the outcome of the FA's enquiry. Of course no-one expected a pardon from the FA, but we did expect a substantial but even-handed fine that would see justice done without unnecessarily hampering the considerable efforts we've made in building a community club. After all, the FA (according to their website) are about 'Promoting the development of the game amongst all ages, backgrounds and abilities in terms of participation and quality. This also involves promoting the availability of the sport to the greatest possible number of people.' Perhaps I am being particularly short-sighted, but I am unsure how giving Macc a £300,000 levy to pay in six weeks quite ties in with this. Sadly it will almost certainly prevent us from helping the FA to achieve these laudable goals, due an imminent lack of existence on our part. Perhaps there is a clause in the FA's many regulations which exempts Macclesfield from this having to do any of this tedious 'promoting the availability of sport' stuff. Essentially, the FA is serving a brand of justice with a much greater injustice. If you'd like a portrait of how the great minds at the FA work, I recommend Simon Jordan's article from The Observer, 'So Who Is Barry Bright?'. He talks about the sort of people running your game - people unconcerned about promoting the availability of football, but in expanding a relentlessly punitive bureaucracy. Samuel Johnson is always good for a quote, and he once said 'An injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere.' And so it is the case here, because this is a punishment that will aid nobody. £195,000 will admittedly go to the Football Foundation, but the benefits of that will be entirely outweighed by the loss of a community football club. By fining Macc so harshly, the FA are in fact failing in their fundamental obligation to promote football, which is a much higher injustice than the extinction of a tiny club in Cheshire. Of course, I implore you to donate to this scheme because it will directly save my club. But I also offer this as a referendum against the damaging bureaucracy of the FA, and ask you to consider that by assuring the future of Macc Town, the goals of 'promoting the availability of sport' are upheld. If the FA can't do this, then we must. To donate please visit www.mtfc.info Thank you Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year What to read next:Swansea City presented another pathetic performance to the travelling Jacks, some of whom had taken seven hours to get to the game today. The lack of effort was almost a V’ sign to head coach, Luke Williams and if that is the case we have some troubling times ahead of us. Hull City 2 - 1 Swansea City - Player Ratings and Reports
If you saw the match, please give us your player ratings and a mini match report. Live text commentary from the MKM, a new initiative for games such as this. We also have a photographer at the game. It’s an early start for Swansea City fans today, no matter where you are travelling from. However, both sides will see this as a winnable game, especially the home side as Ruben Selles takes charge officially for his first home game. Today we see Swansea City take on Hull City at the MKM stadium in Hull. (12.30pm) Below we can see the match officials from Gwyn Davies and all the up front information on this afternoons early kick off. The fact Swansea City fans will have to navigate train delays, roadworks, and at the very least a six hour one way journey to Hull tomorrow will most certainly always be our main news. We’ve covered that already. So we move to transfers in January. With the Hull City away game an early kick off this Saturday (12.30pm) MKM stadium the Swans have the usual slim selections to choose from. With Swans head coach, Luke Williams looking unlikely to dip into a form player from the U21 squad it’s very much as you were. By slim we pretty much mean what he had last week. Swansea City will travel on Friday to play Hull City in an early kick off the next day (12:30pm) at the MKM stadium. Hull are based within the East Riding of Yorkshire. The old medieval wool port with far better access since the building of the Humber bridge in 1981 has housed a football team since 1904. Our staff football writer Trystan Bending has reviewed this weekends home game against Sunderland. The highs and the lows in a game which produced five goals and more disappointment for the Swansea faithful. Trystan puts real context into this fixture. In another game of goals the Swans again snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, and yes that age old term is being used far too often this season. Even when it comes to losing a point. Today however, all three were lost and the best team won the day. |