Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Monday 5 November 2012

5 November 2012

Miss Guest Diary writes: When I was browsing on the NSNOS at the weekend, I noticed a short feature on Mariners Player entitled 'A Day in the Life of Bradley Wood'. As he is one of my Town favourites, I gave it a watch. His day seems to consist of driving, training, playing pool and sitting on a sofa with his daughter. Nice work if you can get it.

The most interesting thing Bradley said was about the importance to the players of the fans. How hearing 3,000 people shouting in support of the team can mean that, once Town score, "there's no way back" for the opposition. And that, when away from home, hearing vocal support from the opposition fans can produce "doom and gloom". Perhaps this explains why Town have been so good on the road in the last year - the travelling fans usually make up a large proportion of the crowd (over a third at Tamworth on Saturday) and often keep up a fairly constant barrage of singing and chanting. By contrast, the Blundell Park crowd has of late been even more brooding and critical than usual. Is this a reflection of Town's poor home form this season, or maybe the cause of it?

The theory expounded in the Telegraph on Town's home form revolves around the defensiveness of most visiting teams. They ponder the benefits of forsaking 4-4-2 and trying out different formations, offering suggestions such as an extra man in midfield or Louis Soares in "the Teddy Sheringham role". Oh dear.

All the chanting in the world couldn't turn Saturday's game into a footballing spectacle. As Ian Miller said in a post-match interview, it "wasn't pretty" and he "wouldn't have liked to pay to watch" the game. I can only agree. But I suspect every fan will also agree that when the game has been won and you're driving home with three points in the bag, the quality of the playing somehow seems less important than the outcome. As John Tondeur so eloquently put it on Twitter: 'Never mind the quality, feel the points'.

I had a couple of e-mails from the Mariners Trust over the weekend. The first gave a summary of the club's financial position which indicated they expect an operating shortfall of about half a million pounds this year. It is fortunate that the normal rules of business don't seem to apply to football clubs as, back when I worked as an insolvency examiner, we called that trading with knowledge of insolvency and it was frowned upon.

The second trust e-mail outlined the hoops it will have to jump through to get a seat on the board of directors of GTFC. I don't really understand why this is seen as some sort of Holy Grail; perhaps someone could explain it to me. Maybe it will become clear at the trust's AGM which is due to be held in the Mariners Trust Bar at Blundell Park at 6.30pm on Wednesday.