Cod Almighty | Article

by Richard Dawson

13 November 2003

I've just eaten four Maryland cookies before starting to write anything down. Oh, and poked the fire, made a cup of tea, checked the email (again), and so on. But there's no way around this one - cruel to be kind and all that (deep breath) – the more football league experience Simon Ford gains, the less experienced a player he looks. There, I've said it now, but I still don't feel good about it. Maybe a digestive will help...

Ford was, and is, always going to suffer by comparison. Blessed with reasonable pace, and with a penchant for trying to do clever things in his own penalty area, he was quickly typecast as a ball-playing centre half in the Handyside(s) mould. And, on his day, he can be. During his debut season in the first team, Simon had some really outstanding games, and was generally viewed on the terraces as a good young prospect.

By the start of the 2003-04 season, Ford had even won the much-coveted number 4 shirt. Despite the wild, and unsubstantiated, rumours of the Handyside(s) return, folk generally assumed that Groves fancied Simon for an extended run in the side again at centre-half. But an awful lot of people were increasingly worried. What had started as an occasional 'one-off moment of madness' type thing had expanded to a 'rough patch caused by loss of confidence' issue, which then seemed to mushroom into an all-out, fully justified, hyperventilating panic attack by the crowd almost any time the ball came near him in the danger area. In fact, nowadays it often takes the fans to rouse him from his narcoleptic defensive slumbers – screaming in unison: "Man ON!!" or "get goal-side, Fordy" or whatever, several times every match.

Don't get me wrong: the fans don't have an agenda with Ford. We haven't "teken agin 'im" – in fact we are all rooting for him every game. But the sorry head shakes from knowing supporters after the defensive cock-ups, the penalties conceded, the own goals, tell their own story. I naively thought that Groves, Chettle et al would coach Simon through it. Those wise old heads would work wonders with the lad. But he's 22 in just a few days' time, and the danger doesn't seem to be passing. If Gallimore played Corporal Jones, then Fordy still seems to want the Private Pike role. No, not Pike so much, but one of 'em , anyway. 

There's most definitely a footballer in there; but without total concentration and tactical nous, in fact without reliability, Ford is a liability in our back line. Groves has talked, quite movingly, about Simon needing an arm around his shoulder sometimes. I like the sound of that, and I really hope the lad makes it. But the jury is out, because, at the moment, Simon Ford is a mistake waiting to happen.