Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Monday 1 August 2011

1 August 2011

Mardy Diary writes: So Town have continued their pre-season form of losing to teams in divisions above us and beating those teams in divisions below us. I guess this means tomorrow night's game against Lincoln will be a draw won't it? Whatever the result anyway, it should give the team a more even match, especially as Lincoln are now claiming that they're actually going to field a full-strength side. And regardless of if they take it serious or not, I hope we see it as a serious match - not because I'm that arsed about the Lincolnshire Cup (all right, yes I am in a very petty way), but because beating a team at our level with a convincing performance sends out a good message for the season ahead. Yes these matches are all about fitness, but I expect most of the players should be match fit by now given the number of games played in the last two weeks.

Feedback (from various sources) on the matches so far seems to fall in to the "yeah, alright that" group of cautious optimism. The relegation-weary Town fans hedging their bets - perhaps another season of nothing, but maybe, just maybe... And the view on the new players is, as you'd expect from football fans, completely different depending on who you talk to: Artus is the best player signed, very creative; no he gives the ball away too much; Church will run the midfield; Church is just another Leary; Silk is solid and dependable; except he's a bit rubbish; Hearn looks lively; Hearn looks lost; Elding shows his experience; Elding shows his experience of doing bugger all. What do I think? I think if most of the same players are still here in 12 months' time along with both managers then that's some sort of progress. One step at a time...

I've given up trying to predict how the season will go anyway since Fenty developed that severe case of October Trigger Finger several years back. I don't know if he's managed to find a cure for that yet. But one thing does give me some confidence: if Fenty has made a series of calamitous decisions over the years to the detriment of the club, and Shouty and Shorty were (as has been claimed) his third choice, then perhaps his first choice was another calamitous mistake and by being forced into a third option he's lucked in to the correct choice purely by chance.

A bit tenuous? OK. But I need to maintain some level of optimism, at least until that first boo-filled home draw with 'lower' opposition. Bear with me.