Cod Almighty | Diary

The Windscreens thing all over again

1 December 2015

Devon Diary writes: Everybody's talking about it, aren't they? No, not the new stadium – the FA Trophy, of course!

Yesterday Town drew Solihull Moors in the first round of the Trophy and now the whole of north-east Lincolnshire is gripped by cup fever and the prospect of a visit by Omar Bogle's old club.

With Marcus Bignot at the helm, Solihull have been going great guns in the Conference North, this season, and at the time of writing are on a 17-game unbeaten run. Manager Marcus is of course the brother of former Town defender Paul, who, during his couple of years with us, earned himself a place in the Great Grimsby Didn't Exactly Tear Up Any Trees During His Stint With Us Nor Did He Do Anything Wrong XI.

Having surveyed Town's support (OK, I've had a quick rummage around on social media) the general consensus seems to be that the Trophy is a tin-pot tournament; a Mickey Mouse competition that's a distraction from the League and FA Cup and we'd be best off ducking out of it at the earliest opportunity.

But why? Because it's for non-League teams? Maybe the folks moaning about the FA Trophy moaned back in 1998 about the Windscreens thing being a poor man's Rumbelows Cup (adjust sponsor as necessary, depending on age). That's the same kind of mentality as the management and fickle fans of Big Club United display when faced with an FA Cup tie with Accrington rather than a trip to Paris in the Champions League (adopt scowl and sneer when reading this). It's the same kind of thinking that Big Club's fans adopt when they find themselves in the UEFA Cup rather than the European Cup.

I hate that kind of thinking. Football clubs play in the competitions they're eligible for. If those cups aren't big enough, not prestigious enough, then everyone involved has obviously missed the point. They've clearly had their eyes closed when their team ceased being good enough. In our case, right now we're a non-League team and therefore, aside from the all-inclusive FA Cup we have to take part in non-League competitions until we get out of the Conference. It's that simple. At least we're not in the FA Vase.

The lack of money attached is another reason given for dismissing the Trophy as a worthless competition. OK, the money for a win against Solihull is considerably less than we will get if we dispatch Shrewsbury next Monday. But that's not why we play these games, is it? If we think like that, then does that mean we should be concentrating on the FA Cup rather than the league? The FA Cup has decent prize money, after all, and a bumper price tag attached to a televised game – far more than the Conference. No. It's a sport, not a fucking business transaction. Fans of Big Club United might think that way – but we're better than that.

What of it being a distraction from the league? Sorry, I don't subscribe to that. We've got a big squad, a strong squad and surely we can compete in two competitions without taking our eye off the ball in our push for promotion. We're doing a disservice to the manager and the players if we don't think they can cope with it. I don't want to keep harking back to 1998 but that team's momentum and spirit weren't diminished by playing in two competitions. If I remember correctly it turned out alright too [checks details in Dave Wherry's We Only Sing When We're Fishing; nods sagely].

Wins in any competition instil confidence in the squad, and the Trophy will be no different in that respect. Maybe the gaffer will take the opportunity to give some of the fringe players a run-out – but right now December isn't really looking too congested, so we should probably look at it as a way of keeping the team ticking over between the Shrewsbury and Dover games. I'd rather be in it than out of it if being out of it means conceding to a team we should be beating.

After the disappointment of the Cheltenham game, November turned out to be a pretty good month for us. Five wins from five and a couple of clean sheets and we're up to third. Maybe, like Solihull Moors, we're on a 17-game unbeaten run, but just nearer the beginning of ours!

Paul Hurst looks like a contender for manager of the month while Podge could probably walk on water if he wanted to, so let's a have a tilt at the Trophy. In his autobiography Pass and Move, Alan Buckley says of the Windscreens thing: "Some managers would play the kids in this competition, but it can be a welcome distraction. I thought we could have a go at it because I wanted the team to gel as much as possible." Sorry, 1998 again, I know – but maybe he has a point?

We might all be worrying about nothing, you know? We might beat the Shrews and then get knocked out by Solihull Moors the week after and it'll all be forgotten by Christmas. I'll be happier with an unbeaten run in all competitions though. Let's just see how it goes.