Another update, and finally somebody’s written me an article (see Articles). Thanks, OI.
Further thoughts since I’ve had a decent night’s sleep. The FA are still sluts, prostitutes, cunts, whores etc. If you’re still feeling angry, down some valium now. Done that? Good. Somebody sent me a rule from the Welsh FA this morning :
“Rule 7. Qualification of Players
(a) All players must be contract or non-contract players. Football Association of Wales rules will apply to the signing and transfer of contract players. They will be registered on Form J of the Football Association of Wales and Transfers of the said contract player will be on Form L. The registration and transfer of non-contract players will be on forms provided by the League. The registration of all players will be valid for one season only.”
Note the last sentence. If the “one season” was 2005/06 then it makes the whole thing seem even more petty and disproportionate. I would comment further, but I’m worried that I’m going to get a stroke. If I did, perhaps I ought to sue the FA for it?
I’m sure we’ll find out what the RP has in store for us in due course. I would hope that we submit(ted) the FAW’s rule 7 yesterday, and will give the RP it again when they deal with us. This might be why we’re being done under the open-to-interpretation 6.1 as opposed to the far nastier 6.8. As I gather the RP would let us appeal, I would hope we’re getting our negotiation skills up to scratch.
As for AFCW, once the dust settles, it needs to do what OI suggested in his article. There will never be a better time to make sure we iron out everything so it never happens again. Procedures for checking this sort of thing should either be introduced or reinforced. While we won’t ever make the IC mistake again, I wonder what other little rules we haven’t got to grips with as yet.
The one thing the club must adopt is a less sentimental attitude to its staff. While we still don’t know who’s mistake it was, it may yet have pretty damaging consequences. And here lies AFCW’s dilemma : at most other organisations something like this (however unintentional) would be at very least a massive censure. With us, there’s a real sense of “protecting your own”, that things are more lenient because they’re the people we have stood with at games from time to time.
In the long run, the cult of personality does nobody any good. It encourages factionism, it makes people harder to shift if they’re not doing the job they (often) get paid to do, and leads to the Old Boys Network. The club has to be brutally honest with itself over this. It may mean more staff to check these things out. It may mean a change in procedures. And there may have to be casualties : that might not be the “Wimbledon way” but I don’t fancy a repeat of the last nine days anytime soon.
Personally, I get more annoyed at the comments that “I’d like to see you do a better job”. Actually, that’s only relevant if you’re applying for the job and openly challenging the incumbent. Otherwise, it’s an attitude that people are beyond criticism – and that is never a good idea. Nobody likes being slagged off, but you are allowed an opinion. Especially if it directly affects you as a paying customer.
The bottom line is responsiblity : if you’re employed to do a job, even if voluntarily, you have a responsibility to do it accurately. Yes, everyone makes mistakes, but some mistakes are worse than others. I know for a fact if I wrote an article and made a mistake – however unintentionally – I could possibly get sued. Something I’m sure you’ll agree isn’t exactly trivial. More importantly, if a medic, or a bus driver, or anyone in safety makes a mistake, we all know the consequences.
Now is a very good time for AFCW to sort out how it does things. We need to get beyond the “these people have worked hard for us for the last four and a half years” mentality. Yes, we appreciate it, but that’s becoming less and less relevant. We now need to be more mature in our approach, and perhaps a bit more hard-hearted. It may hurt some people, but won’t hurt as much as losing 18 points…….