TOO QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT..

I suppose it`s because I know what it`s like to be involved with a failing football club that I keep a watchful eye on those which are in trouble.   Having spent the best years of my playing career in the lower reaches of the Maidstone and District Saturday League, I can identify with the travails of Stenhousemuir, East Stirlingshire, Forest Green Rovers and all the other perennial strugglers in the self-appointed  `beautiful game.`   There are bright spots on these normally grim horizons - Forest Green Rovers seem to have turned a corner and have made an encouraging start to their season in the Football Conference and my neighbour Mr. Slightly must be over the moon that his beloved Gillingham are standing proudly at the top of League Two.

But way down south, the fortunes of another of those clubs I have followed with a kind of misty eyed romanticism could well have only 24 hours to live.   Truro City, in administration and lying bottom of the Blue Square South having been docked ten points, could be `liquidated` tomorrow unless a buyer is found to take over the club and wipe out - in football terms - its fairly modest debts.   They played last Tuesday and won 2-1 against Bath City in what might well have been their last competitive match but the players and staff agreed to stay on unpaid until tomorrow, when the Winding-up Order might see their hopes dashed along with those of their supporters and those, like me, who have long admired their rise from relative obscurity to, well, relative obscurity.

And it is that obscurity that makes it all the more sad, for whilst clubs such as Portsmouth are still seemingly allowed to `trade` despite no less than three administrations and debts reported to be well over £50million and even Manchester United operate with debts of £700million and more, the likes of Truro City can go to the wall without the `football family` lifting a finger in support.

Now I`m not at all keen on American sport but at least their American football draft system allows the less successful teams to have first pick of rising star college players and it would be refreshing if football on these shores were to have some system whereby the clubs in most trouble, either financial or otherwise, are helped rather than allowing the more rich and successful ones to become richer still and even more successful.   Maybe then, the likes of Truro City could have something of a future.   As it is, it`s too quiet on the  western front and tomorrow it could be quieter still.   I wonder if anyone outside Truro will really care?