What's in a name?

So the Abbey is no longer officially called the Abbey. Judging by the reaction on the official website messageboard, I am apparently in the minority in thinking that this isn’t a big deal.

Everybody knows the football club loses a lot of money every year. To recoup some of this for what is, metaphorically speaking, old rope, would seem to be good business, and precisely the sort of step the club should be taking if it is to stand on its own two feet. As well, blatantly everyone will still call it the Abbey, even if the club refer to it differently in their PR. I’m not expecting to hear “There was a great atmosphere down at the Trade Recruitment last night” on the lips of supporters anytime soon.

Football fans are a funny bunch. There would be plenty of people moaning if, instead of renaming the ground, the collection buckets were to come out for the umpteenth time. One accusation which has been levelled at the directors is that they have “sold the clubs soul.” However, I would say if the soul of the club is a stadium we don’t own then we are in trouble anyway.

But, while I think this is a positive step in theory, there are still obvious questions raised by the deal, most pertinently, how much are we getting? If, as Norman Gauntry said at the AGM, the sum is 50k – 100k, then all is well and good, but leaving it undisclosed just encourages speculation and rumour mongering. Even a ball park figure would be nice.

Similarly, the fact that it is George Roll’s company doing the sponsoring begs the question how hard did they look to find other interested parties? These are questions to which I suspect we won’t get answers, unless our good old local family newspaper indulges in some proper journalism for a change. I won’t hold my breath on that front.