Christmas is coming

Not that I’m religious, as an agnostic Buddhist lapsed catholic, I think it’s fair to say that the religious dimension of Crimbo left my building many years ago. This year though it’s different. This year Christmas comes with a promise. No, I haven’t discovered Jesus, and I doubt if he would come to us from City, I am talking about new ownership.

As a kid Christmas morning always started early. I think the earliest me and my siblings got out of bed was about 4am. Presents opened by 4:30, selection box opened by 5am, vomiting started by 5:05. I suspect my Mum and Dad probably didn’t get to bed much before 3am, and having us wake them an hour later must have been as joyful as a 0-0 draw.  It happened like that for many years, and even now, as I approach my mid 60s, the memories of the excitement of 25th December is fresh. 

This year we have the tantalising prospect of the takeover being completed ‘by Christmas’. Now the ‘by’ bit is a moveable feast and some might argue that this means in time for Crimbo Eve. Personally, looking at the way Christmas works these days, I would imagine this probably means by Friday 19th, which is effectively the end of the last working week before everybody downs tools.  I reckon this year there will be a skeleton staff on duty from 22nd. It’s the time of year when solicitors offices revert to voicemail, when getting anything meaningful done, is impossible. Optimistically we are also in the process of having a new bathroom installed. The work will be finished by Christmas, but I am pessimistic. At the very least I expect the sound track of something dripping to haunt my Christmas dreams, albeit at my age that’s not unusual. 

Obviously, buying a football club is much less complicated than having a new bathroom installed, according to the people who are doing our job. Yet it’s still been suggested that the takeover of our club will be complete by Christmas. If memory serves me correctly the same timeline was given last year and then we got into a moveable timetable. It seems to me that Mark and Nicola need to stop talking about deadlines and learn from the civil service.

Civil service timelines have much greater flexibility. Instead of festive dates they use calendar dates. Something will be finished by ‘the early autumn’, the ‘end of Spring’, ‘the summer’. All of these timelines have the added advantage of being open to interpretation. That’s why you can have an ‘autumn statement’ delivered at the end of November. Yet, I suspect, the next deadline we will be given will be either the end of the financial year. That would be 5th April. Then there is the end of the football season, which is 2nd May by league fixtures.

Clearly if this happens Crimbo morning will be a bit of a damp squib. We will rush downstairs to open our emails only to find that Father Christmas did not leave a box with shiny new owners but, instead, an out of office reply saying

 ‘try again next year’. Yet, if I remember my school RE lessons correctly, this is a time of year for hope and joy. Could it be that we are celebrating a new shower, fantastic underfloor heating and only the usual dripping sounds. As for the takeover of the club….well? 

All views expressed are personal