Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Monday 10 September 2012

10 September 2012

Mardy Diary writes: Well, I'm feeling slightly smug about my vague predictive skills from Friday's diary where I said "anyone expecting an open game against them will be in for a surprise and it's likely that the score will be low whatever the result." Yes, OK, I didn't predict the result or the score - but this is as good as my betting skills get. Plus, a simple look at the away form of "free-scoring" Forest Green shows that they're not so free-scoring when they leave their own ground.

It's also interesting to take a closer look at Forest Green's results this season and see that they've not really played any of the 'fancied' teams yet. So perhaps they occupy a bit of a false position. Yes, they'll be up there at the end of the season, I expect - the moneyed, cynical approach to football does tend to pay off to some extent - but I don't think we should really worry about them too much. Unless they do that money club thing of buying all of the strikers from everyone else in January and thus ensuring nobody can ever score against them. Ever.

Of course, that's not to take anything away from Town's performance. Defending solidly and taking your chances is always the sign of a team destined for the upper reaches of the league. Although the lack of goals from the forward players is starting to look a bit worrying. It's worth remembering, though, that Hearn didn't score for his first ten games last season, and then only actually scored in five matches before December (although he scored 13 goals in those games).

We'll have Tony Butcher's views on the performance up on the site some time tonight/tomorrow once we've sorted out a bit of a technical glitch - I think the server has issues with Tony's abuse of the English language...

[Edit: Tony's report is now up!]

In other news, Brian Laws is still persisting with his revisionist history. Whatever, Brian. Still not having it. That photo in the Telegraph report is brilliant though: a very young-looking Laws with Bonetti giving him the daggers and in the middle Bill Carr doing a sort of Kenneth Williams "ooh, matron" look.