Cod Almighty | Diary

Huck it!

10 February 2014

Miss Guest Diary writes: Was Saturday's draw against Southport two points dropped or one point gained? On paper, it was probably seen as an easy game for Town but, as we all know, football has to be played on the pitch. And Saturday's game was played on a heavy pitch in a biting, swirling wind. On the way to the match the wind made it difficult at times to simply walk along the road, so imagine what it must have been like to run around and kick a ball in those conditions.

In his post-match interview Paul Hurst certainly sympathised with his players, acknowledging that windy conditions are something "players detest more than anything". While he felt that Town had "good chances to win", it was also possible that Southport could "nick a goal on the break". He concluded that it's "not a time to be too down about things", so I'm going with the positive view that it was a point gained.

When asked about fixture congestion Hurst admitted that, if Town reach the FA Trophy final, to avoid having to play three games in a week at the end of the season they will need to play Nuneaton on 4 March – the date that has already been ruled out because it clashes with an England C match. That match is... wait for it... a friendly against Jordan. Let's hope the Football Conference, or whoever has the power to decide these issues, take the sensible course and allow Town to play on that date, if necessary.

Town aren't the only club with an accruing backlog of fixtures: Braintree have only played 25 games, with every home match since the new year being postponed due to a waterlogged pitch. And for each of the last two Saturdays only four games in the Conference Premier have survived the wet weather.

If the rain keeps up, could there come a point when it will be logistically impossible to rearrange all the postponed games before the scheduled end of the season? What will the Conference do then? I know their line is that the season can't be extended because Wembley is booked for the play-off final and that can't be changed at short notice. My answer to that is: why does the play-off final have to be at Wembley anyway? For the first four years of its existence it was held at the Britannia Stadium – a venue which I am sure was a lot cheaper and had a lot more atmosphere than Wembley ever could. And I am sure stadiums like that, or Villa Park, or any other Premier League ground, don't have to be booked a year in advance.

But that is all pointless ranting as, according to my fellow diarist, there's no problem anyway and we should all just chill.

Talking of chilling (sorry for that terrible link), what about the Winter Olympics? I have never been a particular fan of the games, winter or summer, but I accidentally caught some of the snowboarding coverage and was hooked. And, in the way it so often happens with sport, also emotionally ambushed. There I was marvelling at the skill and daring and trying to get to grips with talk of 'kickers' and 'nose grabs' and 'backside 360s', when one of the British competitors started to do well. Suddenly I was on the edge of my seat, anxiously hoping she could hang onto a medal place and cheering every mistake by women from other nations who I hadn't even heard of five minutes before. And she did manage to hold on to third place – well done Jenny Jones for winning Britain's first ever medal on snow.