Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Tuesday 12 March 2013

12 March 2013

Graham Precious's Mariners Memory in today's Telegraph is the day Phil Jevons goal beat Liverpool at Anfield, a goal that some years ago CA readers voted the greatest in Town's recent history.

Bah, humbug, your Middle-Aged Diary thought at the time. The day of the match, I shared the thought that, should the Mariners beat Liverpool, it would actually be a little bit annoying in the context of a run in the league that had taken us from a false position at the top of the league in September to mid-table and would eventually see us battling relegation. (I'm making no claims for prescience in recalling that hunch, by the way. Most of us have a dozen hunches before every match but tend to forget those that do not come true.)

I've been visited by the ghost of the Ancient Mariner in the intervening 11 years and now regret not celebrating that win wholeheartedly for the fine if freaky moment that it was. It is not as though it made our league form any worse. There is a balance to be had between keeping one's eyes on the prize while also living in the moment. It is a contrast reflected in the gala day that was our first Wembley visit against the tension of our second, when a whole season was on the scales, a contrast reflected in how the no-show of Russell Slade's side at Cardiff remains hard to forgive.

Tonight's match at Mansfield (if it survives a second pitch inspection at 3:00) may be more important than the visit to Wembley on 24 March, but there is no question which is the greater occasion. However, unless someone sets up a particularly elaborate controlled experiment, we do not know what impact they will have on each other.

Stop press: A peer-reviewed study published in the Gallifreyan Journal of Time Studies shows that had Jevons shanked his volley over the bar, Town would have lost on penalties, and would now be playing in a European Super League, with our own TV channel hosted by George Kerr and a marketing arm raising millions from Tony Gallimore tankards, Scott McGarvey hair products and Gary Childs tailoring. So, a pretty good thing Jevons did score.