A shot in the arm and then in the foot

It's not been very often I can say this in the second week of November in the last few years, so let's make the most of it: Yeovil Town are still in the FA Cup! Fair play to Skivo and his team, last Saturday's 1st round tie at Rushden was a banana skin waiting to happen, so to come through, albeit with the aid of a dodgy refereeing decision, was a veritable triumph. A shame that our 'reward' is a 2nd round trip to the winners of the Hartlepool/Vauxhall Motors tie, but hey, it's the 2nd round! I'd forgotten what that looks like.

Of course the club has managed to take away any possible feelgood factor as soon as it arrived with the announcement yesterday that ticket prices are going up in the new year by £1 across the board. It's all the fault of the Coalition Government's VAT increase in January according to Martyn Starnes as quoted on the club's official site. According to Mr Starnes the club "cannot afford to absorb the rise in the VAT rate imposed by the Treasury.". Funny that, because when the previous Government reduced VAT rates in 2009 the club point-blank refused to lower prices in mid-season in response because "the cost of doing so is prohibitive in terms of administration and arranging coinage," (ABFUP minutes 26th Feb, 2009). So it's possible to change the ticket price mid-season when it's going up, but not when it's coming down. Yes, I see.

We all know the VAT excuse is specious bollocks of course. I've no doubt that the club is struggling financially and needs the extra income so why not just come out and say so? Try treating supporters as adults Mr Starnes and tell us the truth instead of hiding behind a VAT increase that in real terms is nowhere near equivalent to a pound on the price of a ticket. The club needs the money - fine, tell us straight and make a virtue of that necessity. Make people feel that by paying extra they're helping the club to survive. As it has been handled the price rise just gives floating supporters another reason to bitch and moan about the club and not bother attending games. So that will be the recession's fault again then.

It was also interesting to see that the Meet the Manager/CEO meeting, due to be held at Huish Park tonight, has been cancelled. No reason was given for the cancellation but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out why our CEO would probably have preferred not to face the public the day after he's announced a price increase. Or it might simply have been that they hadn't sold enough tickets to justify going ahead with the meeting. Speaking for myself I had thought about going but had decided not to, mainly because I didn't see much point in speaking (with no offence intended) to the monkeys when the organ-grinders were elsewhere. I don't think the decision to charge a fiver to attend the meeting was a good one either, even if the admission price did include a free drink. The days of fans being locked out of Gary Johnson's Meet-the-Manager meetings seem an awful long time ago now. Where has all that enthusiasm and energy in the fanbase gone? It's been knocked out of us in the austere years since and replaced with apathy and doubt. And until there's real change at the club, at the very top, you can't see anything altering. Just more of the same year on year, with the club declining gently in ever-decreasing circles....

Having thoroughly depressed myself it's worth remembering that we're still in the FA Cup and have a winnable home game to look forward to this weekend. Dagenham & Redbridge are of course familiar opponents from our non-league days even if tomorrow's match is the first time both clubs have met in the Football League. For the first time in a very long time the Glovers are outright favourites to win the game at 11/10, the draw is priced at 12/5 and a Daggers win also at 12/5. My fiver's going on the home win. I missed putting a bet on last week which is unfortunate as I would undoubtedly have bet on a Yeovil win at Rushden, honest, but that's the way the cookie crumbles. As it is the running total for the season is a rather alarming -£20.25p. Yikes.

No match report on the blog this weekend as neither myself nor Cruncher will be at Huish Park on Saturday. Cruncher won't be there because he lives well over 100 miles away, and I won't be there because I'm off to Cardiff to watch Wales v South Africa instead, a 50th birthday present to yours truly from my darling wife. And to save HHH the trouble, I'll say it for him: I must really be in her bad books for her to give me that! Have a good weekend, I intend to. Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday dear Taff, happy birthday to me!