Wembley chance has to be the goal

Paul Green

THE REVAMPED Checkatrade Trophy has not worked out at all well, but the changes were worth a shot.

That's the view of Athletic's outgoing chief executive Neil Joy, who this week started work a short drive down the coast from tonight's hosts Fleetwood Town at AFC Fylde.

Additional prize money was thrown into the pot for the maligned competition, with Premier League clubs invited to field under-23s sides in a radical experiment.

Each group stage win is worth £10,000 and there is an overall prize pot of £1.95million.

But with most of the high-profile top-flight sides declining to do so, the Trophy has proven to be ticket-office poison for supporters. Only 392 fans turned up to see Fleetwood beat Blackburn's youngsters at Highbury Stadium.

"You can criticise it and it hasn't worked out. It has been a bit of a disaster," said Joy, whose former duties are now being undertaken temporarily by commercial director Mark Moisley.

"Checkatrade love it as they have had lots of publicity - though I imagine the sponsors are the only ones 100-per-cent happy at the moment with the way it has gone.

"But they have tried something. You have got to freshen things up.

"The competition was dying. It had no sponsor, clubs lost money on games and the prize money wasn't great.

"It has not worked out yet, but two clubs will get to Wembley and have a great day out on the back of it."

As far as Athletic manager Stephen Robinson is concerned, the three group games against Carlisle, Fleetwood and Blackburn are dates on the fixture list he could easily do without.

"Truthfully, I think there are enough fixtures at this level," Robinson said.

"Fans have to pay money to continually watch the games and it's a massive drain financially for the club.

"In an ideal world I would love to rest Peter Clarke and Paul Green and throw in seven or eight young boys to have a look at them, but we are not able to do that.

"It is a cup competition with sponsorship put into it, so we have to take it as seriously as we can."