Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Thursday 3 January 2013

3 January 2013

Player transfers, and by implication the transfer window, are generally seen by football fans as terribly important things. The addition of new and better staff to the playing squad, it is assumed, is always the most significant factor in whether a team will succeed. Similarly, we tend to believe that losing existing members of the side who have been playing well can only end in disaster.

Now, this might run counter to much of what we've come to expect about football, but the more your original/regular Diary watches the game, the less I think it matters who the players are.

Time and again, as Grimsby Town fans, we've seen players brought in who were ostensibly excellent signings but with a net result that was far more negative than positive. There were, most obviously, the Conlons and the Sweeneys whose shrugging self-interest played a large part in the Mariners' relegation from the Football League in 2010. Town were already in a dreadful position when those players arrived - but a good team can also be damaged. Remember the signings forced by John Fenty upon a doubtful Russell Slade in January 2006, which destabilised a top-of-the-table side and ultimately scuppered a credible promotion bid. Amid what turned out to be Town's decade of despair, we were looking at a season of success until the arrival of Curtis Woodhouse, Marc Goodfellow and Junior Mendes knocked it all skew-whiff.

Woodhouse was even a reasonably good player. That was not the point. Whatever you think you've learned about leadership in professional sport by playing Football Manager on your computer, a successful side is not just a collection of good players. It's a team of effective footballers who are settled in their jobs, identify with the club, buy in to their manager's vision, understand their roles on the field and, perhaps most of all, are committed to each other. Experience has shown many times - and not just at Blundell Park - that you can bring in the best players your money can buy, and without the fulfilment of these myriad, intangible conditions you won't have a good team. Similarly, if you get all those other factors in place, you can put a decent team together for ten bob and a bag of spanners.

So I wasn't that surprised when a Town team shorn of Scott Neilson and Ross Hannah turned Lincoln over 4-1 on Boxing Day. Rather than just making signings that looked good on paper, putting them together, and expecting results, Shorty and Shouty have been creating the conditions for success. We now have a team that, while it may not often look the full monty in terms of a title challenge, is built on the right principles. Bradford City have accepted the Mariners' bid for Hannah, but doubts have arisen this morning over Hannah's personal terms. Anthony Elding is staying at Preston for another month with a view to a permanent deal. But my feeling is that the names on the teamsheet will make less of a difference to the success of Town's season than the management being allowed to continue getting all those other details right. Whether or not Hannah or Nathan Pond return to Blundell Park, I'll remain cautiously optimistic about this season. Right up until the final fortnight, when Town play promotion rivals Luton Town and Newport County in two potentially decisive six-pointers, and the newly superb new official website publishes a new club statement from John Fenty.