Cod Almighty | Diary

À la recherche du temps perdu, like when Bogle hammered one in

19 November 2020

Trentside Diary writes: Locked down with no Town to watch (I'm not including Tuesday night and I think I escaped one there), it raised a brief smile and a flood of memories to dig in a drawer for a bookmark and find that it was my ticket for the second leg of the play-off semi-final at Braintree in 2016. It was sitting on top of the one from the final but that day was in many ways more memorable, not least because we came from behind and a certain ginger Pirlo got something in his eye after the match.

So many memories of my life are tied to the fortunes of Town, and I guess yours are too. I also found a small pile of random programmes. No reason for keeping any of them, they had just been left on a desk and not yet binned or recycled. I found it dispiriting looking through them. Seasons that came to nothing after such promise at the start. Same old, same old.

Anyway, enough of my day-dreaming about memorable days gone-by. What's happening with the Mariners at the moment to raise our spirits?

As flagged up by Basque Diary it has now been confirmed that from Friday five substitutes will be the order of the day. I can see both sides of whether this is a good thing or not. Given the way fixtures have been messed up and clubs are playing twice most weeks, using more players in a match might reduce the risk of injuries. However, it really will favour the richer clubs (or those who have splashed the cash) with more strength in their squad. As for how it will affect us, we seem to have a rolling first team anyway so I'm not sure it will make much difference.

We at least have a proper game on Saturday. Tranmere are currently sitting just below mid-table. This is a game we should be able to get something out of but given our current form, I fear it will follow the current trajectory of our season and go a little more pear-shaped. Ian Holloway thinks our problems are down to missing James Hanson, and we certainly are missing someone who can hold the ball up and who pops up regularly to score, but is that the extent of our problems? We have played a couple of brilliant games when there was no Hanson so I think not. Let's hope it all comes together on Saturday.

UTM! Stay safe.