Cod Almighty | Diary
Boom-cha, boom-cha
16 April 2021
Daubney Diary is already in the win column. Back from the dentist with a clean set of gnashers and several soothing tinnitus-inducing drill reverberations stored away for use tomorrow to take my mind off the excruciating pain of watching football. So what's been happening?
A quick plunge into the GTFC hashtag and it looks like Paul Hurst has had enough of Felipe Morais and Stefan Payne. Speaking to Matt Dean, the gaffer confirmed that after last week's shenanigans, neither player is in his plans for this or any other season. Payne is signed only until the end of the season but Morais is contracted until May 2022. We just love a paid up contract, don't we.
The Portuguese was signed at a time when Ian Holloway was doing mad stuff like announcing caravan-dwelling goalie coaches who only lasted one game and, because he was worried about the match fitness of his full-time professional footballers, playing 15-year olds whose training primarily consisted of spending the week in school avoiding wedgies. Giving a 35-year old who'd hardly played for 12 months a two-year playing contract barely registered on the flat cap nutter scale.
So we're anchored to the bottom. Our ageing strikeforce that was averaging a goal every six weeks is now a depleted, ageing strikeforce. The manager looks like he's aged 10 years during the latest soap opera. And we've got bleedin' Bolton tomorrow; Bob Cumming scored the last time we beat them. I suppose to pull off a memorable escape from a completely hopeless situation, you have to dig yourself there first. So we can say we've ticked part one off. Granted, it was the easiest part but credit where it's due, we've done it in some style.
Back to that strikeforce. It's making unlikely escape unlikelier. Technically we have strikers but normally functioning teams might field one big guy chugging about trying to hold the ball up and scoring the odd header. We've had three, with another on the bench for emergencies in case one blows a gasket. With Payne in the airlock waiting to be jettisoned out over Spurn Point, Mr Hurst, could I respectfully suggest that we play Jackson or Gibson or some other runny-about type that I might have forgotten about? Are Adlard and Boyd wedgie-free with all their homework done? Just something different. Please.
Elsewhere on the finest football hashtag the world has ever seen, Baz Whittleton's column has done just as one would hope and generated some debate over ownership models. Have a read if you haven't and chuck your tuppence ha'penny worth in. Jason Stockwood has done just that. We're obviously in a bit of a mess at the moment and it would be dereliction of our duty as fans to assume that Stockwoods and Pettits are going to tap a wand and undo 20 years of arse-about-tittery. We've all got a lot of work ahead of us to re-establish GTFC as a club to be proud of. Whether you agree with Baz's ideas or not, he's asking the right question as I see it: how do we ensure we never end up here again?
Right, the best part about doing the Friday diary is I can always knock off early and direct you to a week's worth of great writing to fill your afternoon. As well as Baz's column Jack Sargent had his say on the Fenty years. Chuck in some cracking diaries accessible via the arrow at the top of the page and you're sorted. Have a great weekend and UTM.