Cod Almighty | Diary

Don't stop believing! Oh. Too late

23 February 2024

Ooh, the sun's out. First time in a week. I feel giddy. This is indeed the maddest, merriest day of all the glad new year. Unless you're a Town fan, obviously. Then it's a bucket of shit.

BOTB has this theory that if GTFC were to be taken over by Elon Musk, managed by Klopp and had the pick of world footballers from the last 20 years we would still be unable to get above tenth in the fourth division.

In the last 20 years we've changed players in every position about twice a season, changed managers, changed our style of play and changed ownership. In fact the only consistent thing at BP over that period is that the paper towel machine in the men's toilets gives you a scrap of blue paper and a vomiting noise instead of anything useful. Newell's here! Now we're gonna be good. Slade's back! At least we'll be good, if boring. Holloway? How did we get him? Up the leagues we go! Fenty's gone! Now we can get motoring! False dawn after false dawn after false dawn. It can get tiring.

Weirdly incoherent current incumbent Our Tel seems untroubled by the threat of imminent relegation. He was a very popular player with Morecambe, apparently, so tomorrow he will enjoy the rare sensation of being greeted warmly by a football crowd. More importantly, fixture wise, Sutton are at home to Colchester and Forest Green are at home to Tranmere. My current strategy of hoping that the two bottom-placed teams continue losing every game is under threat because we have to play both of them in the coming weeks. Uh-oh!

I don't really blame the current board for appointing Our Tel. He did well with Crewe. Presumably he managed to string a few sentences together at the interview, even if he hasn't managed the feat since. My own view on managers is that they need to be successful at two clubs or more for it not to be a fluke. Look at Brian Laws, for example. Very average at Town, very average at Scunny for a while followed by a meteoric rise, then very average everywhere else. I think sometimes teams just hit the right chemistry irrespective of who's in charge. The team leads the manager to success rather than the other way round.

Would sacking him save us? Probably not, to be honest. Plucky little ex-Town manager Paul Hurst didn't spend the cup money well and compounded the problem by putting together a team with apparently no attacking intent whatsoever. People think Our Tel started with the passing about at the back bollocks but forget Hurst had adopted the trendy tosh well before that. It's horrible to watch and has brought us nothing but failure but we have to keep doing it because lots of people in football are unable to think logically or critically but simply go along with whatever the current fad is.

Actually, the difficulty in distinguishing what's fashionable from what's good is a feature of humanity outside of football as well. How else would you explain Robbie Williams beating Mozart in a poll for musician of the millennium, or perms? Or Ed Sheeran, this generation's Gilbert O'Sullivan? Stone-washed jeans, anyone? Mullets?

Are you going to Morecambe? They should hand out medals at the turnstile to anyone brave enough to travel. May you all have a safe journey and be garlanded with flowers along life's winding path. You deserve it. Our away following is one of the wonders of the world. The league will be worse off without us.

Or maybe we'll get a point or something. You never know. Strange days. I've stopped believing, but I've never stopped hoping.

UTM