Former Hereford United goalkeeper Matt Baker on the need for prudence in football, and why supporters will have to get used to it.
First off, may I wish everyone a belated Happy New Year. Just writing these words makes New Year's seem so long ago.
Now we're in to the doom and gloom of late January, the optimism everyone began the year with has started to slowly dissipate.
The diet wobbles, the forced daily exercise slips but the necessary fiscal discipline is very real.
We have seen a boon in false wealth over the last decade, with easy credit eroding our notion of having to earn and save to get the things we want.
Living beyond our means has become a way of life and the realisation that the day of reckoning has come, for many, is hard to adjust to.
It's not just households who have to save more and spend less; government must and is doing the same.
You may be wondering what all this has to do with 'the beautiful game' but football can't avoid the fact that the days of easy money are well and truly over.
Clubs will have to behave more like functioning businesses rather than extensions of owners' egos.
Excluding clubs run by billionaires, some have started to realise this and put their houses in order.
Shorter playing contracts, lower salaries and smaller transfer fees are just some of the effects we've seen in the 'age of austerity'.
Hereford recognised this and adjusted their playing budget accordingly.
Of course any budget involves an element of guess-work, and the one thing I'm sure the owners would have been hoping for was slightly bigger crowds.
In supporters' defence, and this is fans of all clubs, they will have been hoping for success on the pitch to help draw them out on a cold Tuesday night. Not a problem on the weekend, I'm sure!
I was at Leeds last Saturday and was astounded to hear many fans calling for Ken Bates to leave.
The frustration of seeing players being sold and replaced with free transfers or loans doesn't sit well with the paying public.
But as Simon Grayson pointed out in his post-match interview, when he answered one of the more stupid questions I've heard in a press conference, players like Fabian Delph don't come cheap!
Managers and coaches have to look at more initiative ways to bring success to their teams now that money is scarce.
Scouring lower leagues, better evaluation of players by throwing away the old playbook and working at improving the players they already have are imperative.
It's one of the biggest scandals in British football, and the root of most of our international failings, that once players become professionals they rarely take part in purely technical training sessions.
The emphasis is on NOT making mistakes rather than working on technique under pressure. You only learn by trying different things and some of those will fail, but the secret is to fail small enough not to bring down the house.
Chairmen have to realise this and understand the quick fix of rotating managers isn't the answer.
More importantly, fans have to understand that the old, long-term building blocks to enable success are more important than the quick chequebook fix.
Bill James and Billy Beane transformed the world of baseball in the not too distant past.
Unfortunately, as always seems to be the case, football is the last one to catch on.
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