Cod Almighty | Diary
The calm before the storm
5 May 2016
Devon Diary writes: Three days. In this impatient internet age of instant gratification and media saturation, is three days enough time passed for me to say that I’m thoroughly bored with the whole Leicester thing now? Not the football of course, no. It was quite refreshing to see a team taking it to the Big Time Charlies of the Premier League and demolishing their expensively assembled Champions League-ready squads in front of their spoiled supporters' eyes.
What I’m fed up with is that every journalist on every radio and TV channel had to be seen to be talking about Leicester. Every interviewee had to have an opinion on the Foxes. There was a point on Radio 5 Live on Tuesday afternoon when an analogy was drawn between Leicester’s season and primary school kids due to take Key Stage 1 SATs. No, of course it didn’t make any sense! If I wanted to be exposed to folk who know nothing about football rambling inanely about it anyway without offering any real insight then I’d either log on to the Fishy [note to self – insert emoji here to make sure that everyone knows this is a gentle joke. I’m winking] or re-read my diaries from this season.
One thing that hasn’t been covered much since Monday is the time Town tried to sign Gary Lineker. Details are scarce but it seems to have been in the 1978/79 centenary season when Lineker was but a young pup, possibly yet to make his first team debut. Then manager John Newman was offered the lavishly-eared goalhanger for £30,000, a sum which would probably pay for a day or two of Wayne Rooney’s services these days but back then was a substantial fee for Town. The Town board apparently baulked at the figure having not paid more than £20,000 for a player until then (the next season, John Stone was signed for a record £22,500) and we went our separate ways. Apart from a worldie by Muzzy Izzet, Phil Turner’s transfer in 1988 and one-time Town midfielder Craig Shakespeare currently being assistant to Ranieri, our clubs don’t have much to link them. but just think; in an alternate timeline the Match of the Day host might be pondering which underpants to wear on the telly if we win the next three games.
Last night, in front of a huge crowd (for the Crabble) the mighty Forest Green Rovers beat Dover 1-0 for the second time in a week. I was going to watch the game on the telly but I went out for a pizza instead. Much derision is being piled on the eco-friendly Rovers for the somewhat low (ahem) turnout but they take that advantage back to Nailsworth on Saturday and look likely to be heading to Wembley. Like that funny box thing in Hellraiser, it's all coming together nicely isn't it? We can beat Forest Green.
And so on to Braintree. Braintree, Braintree, Braintree. Garishly-shirted Braintree. Plucky part-timers Braintree. Town have their bogey teams and Braintree sit fairly and squarely in that category and of course have done ever since 16 August 2011. If ever there was a time that Town needed to stop fannying about and extract the thorn in our sides which is the Iron then it is surely tonight.
Who will line up for Town? We’re fully fit so everyone rested at Tranmere can be expected to be in the starting XI and I reckon we’ll kick off with Horwood, Toto, Gowling, Tait, Monky, Nolan, Dizza, Arnold, Bogle and Amond. The real questions are about who warms the bench and as none of the fringe players really staked a claim at Tranmere apart fom Josh Venney (and we know he’ll be left out despite Wicklow's protestations) then I’m going to say Pearson, Clay, JP, Jennings and Robertson. Marshall might be due a good performance but he’s probably only got one in him so he’ll take Jennings’ place on Sunday. Hurst's interview on Mariners Player was reassuring. He looks calm, he says he's calm and the players are calm too. I've got a good feeling about this.
I’m not even going to look at Braintree’s team news for two reasons. The first is that like Hurst and the lads we shouldn’t be worrying about them. Cheek and Akinola are pretty handy but the rest are your standard conference jobbers. Like a wall of hay bales; you can’t go through it, you need to go round the side. The second reason for not filling you in on the Iron is that their website seems to be from the late-90s and hurts my eyes.
It's time for us to show what we're capable of both on the field and off. The team will do the business and the fans must do theirs. This morning's news that Braintree have increased our ticket allocation for Sunday's second leg to 1,000 hopefully means that we don't see a mass exodus before the final whistle as the faithful leg it to the club shop.
Before I sign off in order to nervously pace up and down and chew my finger nails there was some interesting news in the Yorkshire Post about the impact of the FA Trophy on Halifax Town. Town's opponents were sadly (and I mean that quite sincerely) relegated and will obviously need to be cutting their cloth accordingly but the moving of the Trophy final into May means that the Shaymen have a three-week gap with no game and are having to maintain their wage bill for that time. It's reported that will mean a "substantial five figure sum" and once the cost of accommodation in London is factored in the club will struggle to break even. Time for the FA to wake up and think about the clubs and fans rather than their brand?
Anyway, enough of that. If you're going to the match tonight, enjoy it and shout yourselves hoarse. Up the Mariners!