Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Thursday 22 December 2011

22 December 2011

It's interesting, your Guest Diarist thinks, to sit for a minute and wonder why so many Town fans have stumped up to go to the away match at Sincil Bank on Boxing Day. Town have sold out each allocation they've been sent and more away tickets are reported to be arriving this afternoon. If every one gets sold then it will be an away contingent of 1,800, the club ticket office says. Back to the numbers we used to take a decade or more ago. Is this some kind of imperceptible 'last hurrah'? Or is it just proof that this part of the Conference fixture list, which conjoins local derbies with feast days, actually works - to compensate for the other parts of the fixture list, which seem designed to prevent all but the totally obsessed attending all the matches?

Both sides are just a fraction better than they were early in the season, benefiting from loan players to replace the duds. In a normal job, if you keep making expensive mistakes there's normally a bit of an inquest. This used to be called an 'almighty bollocking' in the seventies and eighties but that has been supplanted by something the latest generation of human resourcists call 'process'. In the old days, if you had too many bollockings you knew your number was up and started looking for another job (there were other jobs to look for in those days of course). But if you are a football manager or professional player you don't get bollocked much. The management are as patient as hell. Until they unexpectedly fire you, that is. That's still the 'process' here in the arcane world of professional football: unexpected and sometimes totally unjustified sackings wrapped up in words like mutual consent and contract cancelled.

As far as I am concerned only Hearn, Elding and Disley have been signings by the present management pair that have sort of 'worked'. Of the other players bought in, well, one always associates the words 'Spencer' and 'why?' now. As for the goalkeeper - he's the goalkeeper of choice but is he actually visibly, definably better than the other one? Both makes saves, both make mistakes. Accent and gloves apart, they are indistinguishable to me. Why, when we are skinter than we've ever been, did we sign two and then not even put the spare one on the subs' bench?

Church and Pearson were a hard-fought-for transfer, an expensive gamble which didn't work. Shame for the lads, but it's gonna be a miracle if they can command a place in a successful Conference team. Silk arrived looking like a solid signing, but it seems we never need that sort of player. And Frankie Artus has rarely been seen at the head of the peloton.

So we've ended up with a first team dependent on loan players in important positions. Again. Garner, either at home or at work, has done something to upset. He's way out in the cold - a shame because the lad had potential and his England C cap proves it. So Kempson's gone. Kempey? Goney? Yes, with Kempson 'terminated', with Garner cold-shouldered and Pearson a busted flush, we need loaner Antwi.

And with Church failing miserably, for all his effort, we need Panther, another loaner. And with Ridley bombing out we need loan-boy Townsend. And with Makofo's surge being as unreliable as Scotty's warp engine (in series one episode nine - don't check, I made that up), and Eagle(s)' face not fitting and his copybook blotted, that means we need to keep borrowing McCarthy.

But Hearn and Elding have sort of worked. Having admitted that, Hearn's goals don't win enough matches. Look to Connell's goals-to-points record. And then look to Hearn's. No, I haven't actually done the legwork and the calculation: who do you think I am? Where's the Cod Almighty statistician when you need him, eh? But I just know that Connell was more valuable to us than Hearn. Hearn has got more than enough goals for Town and Elding has chipped in with a very respectable number too. But Town are 15th and miles off the play-offs at Christmas: that says it all as far as I am concerned.

As the Shouty manager wryly said the other day - all he wants for Christmas is a few one-nil wins. I wonder what young Sam Mulready will get for Christmas. It's 'that time' for him this week. I suspect the lad will get the thumbs down so the managers can 'get a couple more bodies in during the January window'. The modern 'process' continues. See yer.