Cod Almighty | Diary

They say our love won't pay the rent

7 April 2014

Miss Guest Diary writes: Four away games, four 1-0 victories. I was only at two of those games and am relying on match reports, highlights and the word of a friend to reach the conclusion that Town's recent performances on the road have a Groundhog Day vibe about them. A classy individual goal; a couple of good saves from McKeown. The rest of the games have been a fairly dull serving of hoofing and missed chances from both sets of strikers.

The one absolutely identical thing in all four games, and in the recent games against Luton and Forest Green, is that none of Town's goals was scored by a designated striker. You have to go back to the game against Wrexham on 15 March to find one of Town's strikers scoring a goal: Andy Cook in the 94th minute – and he can't even make it onto the bench these days. In fact, since the turn of the year Town's midfielders and defenders have scored twice as many goals as the strikers.

I am not really surprised by this. I have been watching Town since 1990 and I can only bring to mind three prolific Town strikers: Mendonca, Connell and Hearn. I might consider adding Boulding and Reddy to that number but, apart from these five, I wouldn't say anyone I have seen up front for Town in the last 24 years could be counted on to score when the opportunity arose. One might have hoped we'd secured such a player in Connor Jennings – after all, 17 goals in 19 games for Macclesfield is some scoring rate – but, as often seems to happen to prolific scorers who pull on a Town shirt, he has managed just one goal in 10 games.

In the 90s the most common result seemed to be 1-0 (Groves) or 1-0 (Donovan). In fact, it was the latter scoreline that got us back into the second tier in the 1998 play-off final. But I guess if it means Town can secure promotion back to the Football League this year, we'd all take any number of dull games with a 1-0 (Rodman) scoreline.