Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Thursday 2 August 2012

2 August 2012

Miss Guest Diary writes: Another week, another three pre-season games under Town's belt. I have only been to one of them, but add to that the Olympic double-header I attended in Coventry on Sunday (which was an excellent all-round experience) and I feel as if we're halfway through the season already. I just hope the players don't begin to feel the same.

At least last night's game against North Ferriby United featured only those senior players who have been mostly on the bench so far, plus Liam Hearn returning from injury. The rest were youth teamers and Simon Ford who, it appears, is going to be offered a one-year contract. More of him later.

The NSNOS report on last night's match is so brief as to say virtually nothing except that Hearn scored Town's only goal and was substituted "as a precaution" after being kicked. And the Telegraph hasn't yet bothered with any report at all. So I have been unable to get either confirmation or denial of the distressing suggestion made by a couple of tweeters that Town played in a 4-3-3 formation again. That could explain why Town failed to beat a team from two ranks below them just over a week after beating Scunthorpe, who are two ranks above. I know it wasn't a full-strength team, but eight of the starting line-up are potential first-teamers. Maybe I'm worrying about nothing and it'll all be OK when the season finally starts, but Shouty and Shorty have consistently failed to confirm that 4-4-2 will be the preferred formation.

The new stadium saga continues, with the protesters handing a petition against the development to the council. I fear it will do them no good as business interests seem always to trump the interests of local communities these days. Maybe some enterprising local botanist can discover a rare plant on the land which will prevent it being developed.

Returning to Simon Ford, match reporter Tony Butcher refers to him as the 'space cadet' because of his lapses in concentration. I don't remember his time at Town being that bad, so I did a bit of research in the Cod Almighty archives to see what we were saying at the time. There's some good news and some bad news. The match report for one of his earliest games, a home victory against Portsmouth in 2001, awarded him man of the match for scoring and being "very prominent in snuffing out the dangerous moments". His first player profile described him as "pacy, neat passing, an excellent reader of the game, sprightly jumps, controlled headers and a deceptive physique for a centre-back - this lad could go onto big things."

Regrettably, he seems to have failed to live up to that early promise - scoring only three further goals and winning two more MOM accolades in his 70 or so appearances. A subsequent player profile opined that "there's most definitely a footballer in there; but without total concentration and tactical nous, in fact without reliability, Ford is a liability in our back line". But eight years is a long time in which to hone those concentration skills and Town are two divisions lower down now, so we'll just have to wait and see.