Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Tuesday 23 August 2011
23 August 2011
Three games in and we hardened Town fans have yet to see our beloved team score a goal in a league that has been described as 'tough', 'difficult to get out of' and 'shit'. Tonight we face an old friend in Cambridge, with whom we share fond memories of the early 1990s when football seemed so simple. Of course, back then we rose through the leagues side by side in contrasting styles - Town played football while Cambridge, under John Beck, hoofed it.
It was rumoured that, to suit his team's tactics, Beck used to let the grass grow longer in the corners of the pitch so that the ball would 'hold up'. It was rumoured that, to suit his team's tactics, Buckley got his players to pass to each other. Of course, neither Buckley nor Beck ever had to get their team out of the Conference.
Shorty and Shouty have clearly thought: if you can't beat them, join them. It's your West Yorkshire Diary's opinion that you don't have to 'join them' to get out of this league because by doing that you just become as bad as them. When you consider that nearly 50 of last season's goals came from Connell, Eagle and Coulson - three players who are not exactly built like brick shithouses - it suggests there is room for sharp-thinking players with a touch of class to flourish at this level. But what's worrying me is that by singing the likes of Spencer and Elding we've well and truly 'joined' them - and yet we're still not beating them.
The thing is, to me at least, Luton still have an air of supremacy about them. They might have a bully boy as manager but their reputation remains the same; they've retained the inevitability of being involved in a promotion race each and every season while they remain in this league. They won't be compromising and looking around them to see what works. We've compromised in playing style, mentality and culture in a last ditch effort to see if that works, and so far it hasn't. We've become a Conference club and we'll probably get stuck here - like Cambridge.
But let's not get bogged down too much in negativity. That's too easy. What would Paul Groves say? Well, he'd take the positives and highlight the fighting spirit in the camp after a 'gutsy' goalless draw at Newport on Saturday - just as Shouty did in this provocative article telling fans not to show up if you're just going to slag the team off. At least we'll have Kempson available tonight after the managerial duo decided to appeal his red card on the basis that it was outside the box, it was never a foul, it was never a penalty and Shaun Pearson was coming round to the edge of the six-yard box so he wasn't the last man. Church is training but isn't ready to be called back into the side, Hearn's injured foot isn't as injured as it was and Shorty thinks Elding will score very soon. Garner and Silk are out for the best part of a month. For a bit more information about tonight's opposition and to know that they have players called Harrison Dunk and Michael Gash, check out Cod Almighty's comprehensive pre-match factfile.
You know, there was a time when a manager knew his best 11 and played his best 11 week after week. Players never used to get injured as easily and as regularly back then as they do now, I'm sure. Today it's niggles and tweaks and strains all the bloody time, and due to a succession of injuries, despite the season being less than two weeks old, our defensive options have dissolved to such an extent that ex-youth team defender Conor Marshall has been signed on non-contract terms, whatever that means, just weeks after being released.
It sounds as though Cambridge manager Jez George is planning to stifle us tonight, much in the same way as we stifled Newport at the weekend. God I hope they don't. George wasn't happy with his team's defending in their 2-1 home defeat to Kidderminster, claiming: "The goals we conceded on Saturday looked even worse on the DVD than they did first hand." Go on, Town - that sort of defence sounds like it deserves a spanking!