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Diary - Friday 7 September 2012

7 September 2012

Mardy Diary writes: There's a bit of caution in Paul Hurst's interview in today's Telegraph. Forest Green are, apparently, not Barcelona and instead they are actually a team in the same league as us. So, says Hurst, we should at least be able to match them. But then he talks of needing the right attitude and sticking to our plan and all that. Simply: we need to beat them. Or if not, a draw. Which wouldn't be bad because although they are only Forest Green they are, it would seem, a bit good.

It's no fluke that they're a bit good though as they are another one of those teams who've had a wealthy benefactor throw money at them - following in the footsteps of Crawley, Fleetwood and er, Grimsby Town.

Of course it's all too easy to sneer at these new-monied clubs, which is why I always like to do it. Sure, you get accused of jealousy and are told that you wouldn't complain if someone chucked loads of money at your club. But in our case I think the jealousy comes from the fact that someone has, repeatedly, chucked loads of money at our club and we're still a bit shit. It's not fair.

Some Town fans are seemingly upset that the owner of Forest Green has deemed that only veggie food can be bought at their ground as if this somehow impinges on their human right to devour cattle. This of course misses the point that they are free to take whatever food they like in to the ground, which is more than can be said for Blundell Park where chip butties are confiscated at the turnstiles.

It's also questionable how much actual meat (and I don't count reconstituted sheep bollock as meat) is actually evident in the products sold at BP - in spite of how much Fenty likes to convince us of their tastiness.

Back to the match then, and I noticed that the Telegraph describe Forest Green as 'free scoring', which, having scored 12 goals in seven games I suppose could be an accurate description. Only that, away from home it seems more the case that they've kept a tight defence and taken their chances on the break. So, 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.

However, let's not discount Town giving one of their inexplicably good and all-too-rare performances where they make the opposition look like, er, some small non-League side from the south-west. It could happen. For more rushed and made-up pre-match analysis like this, look no further than our last-minute Forest Green match preview.

In other news Brian Laws is touting his new autobiography in which he has the nerve to completely deny chickengate. Apparently, it was Bonetti who threw the plate (as well as the first punch) and good old Lawsy just returned a punch which was so superhard that it broke Bonetti's jaw.

Well, I'm sorry Brian, I'm not having it. Some things have been written into history and cannot be changed: Livvo scored all of his goals with his arse; Georges Santos killed three players simply by staring at them; John Oster scored on his debut for Town aged only 11; and Brian Laws broke Ivano Bonetti's jaw with a plate of chicken wings.

See, that would never have happened at Forest Green. It'd have been a tray of houmous and celery. See ya.