Cod Almighty | Diary

It's not some Portakabins, it's a modular village

12 September 2018

A Town reserve side went down 3-2 at home yesterday against Doncaster's "development squad". Given that the first XI currently boasts an excellent midfield but seems unable to attack or defend very well, the key points of interest will include a decent showing up top from Charles Vernam. Vernam, whose absence from the starting line-up has become increasingly untenable as Town have struggled to score in recent games, will surely find himself in contention for a starting spot for the visit of Oldham this Saturday. If only a similarly straightforward option could present itself in terms of sorting the defence.

Having a bland new stadium, of course, makes Doncaster the sort of ostensibly upwardly mobile set-up that feel they need to use a posh name like "development squad" to mean their reserves. But we go back a long way with them, so we all know they're still plain old Donny Rovers. It's a bit like the kid from your street who grows up to become an estate agent, gets their clothes ironed at the laundrette, and starts saying "yourself" instead of "you", but every time you see them you remember when they were seven and spent a whole afternoon sitting on the kerb poking a bit of white dogshit with a twig.

A further point of interest from the game is the appearance of Ahkeem Rose and Max Wright as substitutes despite being out on loan to Boston United. At first sight your original/regular Diary found this quite an odd instance of divided responsibilities. But then again, if I can write today's diary during the coffee break at a work away day, I'm sure Max and Ahkeem can manage half an hour for the stiffs on a Tuesday night and still turn out back at York Street three or four days later.

Back to the first team, then, and how worried should we be about an unexpected defensive collapse at this stage of the season? I'm not sure, but it's nice of our old friends at Hartlepool to remind us about the anniversary of that evening in 2003. Happy 8-1 day, everyone. Still, things could be worse. We could be Hartlepool.

And finally, the 140 years of Town's history so far will be commemorated in four hours this Sunday with an exhibition at Blundell Park, organised by the Mariners Trust. I can't make it along, unfortunately, so have a nice time if you go, and let me know what it's like. If we still have a club in ten years' time then maybe the 150th anniversary will fall a bit more conveniently for me.