Cod Almighty | Diary

Nothing happens until something moves

22 November 2019

Without a win in eight, the last thing Town need right now is to face a team that's won five of their last six games. Northampton currently occupy the last play-off spot — somewhere we believed the Mariners could be after we'd all been drawn in by our strong start to the season.

But the season, like every other before it, has tailed off badly. Injuries and postponements haven't helped, of course, but that doesn't excuse some of the performances the players have put in since that tremendous win at Exeter.

It's difficult to know when things started to unravel, and why. Sure, Jolley going for interviews at other clubs just a couple of months on from assembling his squad for the season probably wouldn't have done anything for team morale. Was playing direct dross part of his masterplan, or was it a result of his players not carrying out his plans because he couldn't get his methods across? Had his relationship with some of them broken down?

We're speculating. Ultimately, the manager takes full responsibility of what happens on the pitch and Michael Jolley put himself under pressure to the point where he blew a gasket and accused local journalists — whose coverage of the Mariners had earned them an industry award — of being a "fucking disgrace".

Jolley was qualified up to his eyeballs but, clearly, no academic work can truly replicate the pressure cooker environment that football creates, or tell you how to deal with journalists that you feel aren't shooting straight, or how to feel when some abusive bloke at the back of a wooden stand in Cleethorpes insists that you 'sort it' whenever your team isn't winning.

Then again, maybe there's a bit in the UEFA Pro Licence where it tells you to swear at the local press and take it out on them if you're feeling under pressure. Maybe there's a bit that tells you to go on Twitter, search the hash tag associated with the club you're managing and then block anyone who has anything negative to say about you or your team.

Jolley did a good deal in the community and met a lot of fans during his time in charge. He saved us from relegation, took us on a couple of cup runs and developed a good group of young players. Your West Yorkshire Diary was a big fan of his and appreciated the work he did and acknowledges that he leaves the team in a better place than when he took over.

But if he couldn't handle opinions (fair or otherwise) on social media then maybe he shouldn’t be on social media. And if he couldn't handle a couple of local journalists then maybe he shouldn't be a football manager. Those petty and aggressive actions sort of undermine everything he pretended to be in front of the microphone, and that massively disappoints someone as senstive as me.

It's been a month since our last league game, so maybe a trip to Northampton is exactly what Town need right now. And to make us all feel a bit better about our chances tomorrow, we are undefeated on our last five visits there — a run that stretches back all the way to February 1998 when two second half goals from the Cobblers overturned Kevin Donovan's first-half strike. Town would have the last laugh, of course, when they won the play-off final in May.

Limbricks has already been judged by some of our fans following that dire defeat on Wednesday, but away games at Newport and Northampton would give any good manager at this level a stern test. Tomorrow is a free shot for Limbrick, as far as I'm concerned. The pressure will likely be on next Tuesday when Town return to Blundell Park for their match against Cheltenham, so tomorrow the players should play without fear.

Fans should travel more in hope than expectation (I know — when has that been any different) and, you never know, the referee might not be a cretin. Mr Butcher may have accused Andy Haines of "low-level nitwittery" in our 2-0 home win over Port Vale last season, but he also described him as a "cowardly anti-homer", so that bodes well for tomorrow. A few months later, in our home win over Crawley, Haines was "perfectly balanced in his uselessness" and had a "rhythm to his rubbishness" and, by the end of last season, he was "perfectly adequate" in our 2-1 defeat at Notts County.

Time for Town to defy the odds, make a mockery of our form and do something totally outrageous by, you know, scraping a 1-0 win or something. Anything to give us fans some football to talk about. UTM!