Cod Almighty | Diary

Goodbye, Miami

11 July 2014

Retro Diary writes: One of the few things which keeps me supplied with mirth during the close season is the way our departing players are presented to the fans of their new clubs. This year, Aldershot have signed, apparently, "a dynamic midfield player, whose passing range is excellent, with the physicality to compete in the centre of the park". Yes, this perfect storm is our own Sam Hatton.

I didn't mind Sam – he always made it clear he didn't want to play for us, and given that, stuck at the task for a full season until his mental blow-up in the last game gave BT Sport a chance for an early fly-on-the-ceiling shot of the dressing room. Up to that point he was, well, workmanlike. Did he ever play in midfield? If he did, I don't remember it.

And the likeable and perennially under-confident Andy Cook is back at Barrow – superficially a step downwards, but more I think a form of sensible semi-retirement. If the Barrow fans believe anything their manager says, they think they're getting "a better player than what he was [sic] the first time". Apparently, "in both penalty areas, so both defensively and attacking-wise – you don't get many better at this level".

So if, as we know to be true, the only difference between one team and another 'at this level' is a half-competent centre-forward, we look forward very much to the mighty Barrow sewing up Conference North by Christmas, fuelled by a Cooky goal stampede. He certainly goes back there having scored at Wembley, so a more fulfilled footballer if not a better one.

So are Town being 'had' in the same way? Assuming that 45 minutes at the Bradley Community Stadium hasn't given us a rounded overview of our new recruits, a quick glance at their old fans' opinions reveals two things.

First, the quality of the debate on forums goes up impressively as you descend the leagues. Second, Macclesfield are sad but not gutted to see Jack Mackreth go, and Southport likewise for the other two. I can't see Town's upper echelons, who we sometimes suspect have infected the local media with hypnotic 'Pollyanna virus', allowing them to tell us that Mackreth is "like Colbeck but shorter"; or that Toto is "going to kick something, but it might not always be the ball". Indeed, we have a small clue to this – like midfield general Hatton, he is suspended already.

Among our esteemed paper's summer non-stories ("we have not talked to Monsanto Sutterthwaite and he's the last thing we need"), it was nice to see a contribution from the erstwhile 'Tireless' Lee Nogan, looking as boyish and bemused as the day he left. Lee was OK – not my favourite striker at the time, but in his day we had to play against defences that stood in a proper line, so things was 'ard. It's nice to know, anyway, that he thinks Town will be 'thereabouts' this season. Thanks for that statement of the bleedin' obvious, Lee. In fact, we are going to finish top, or someone's going to get hurt.

Having said that, optimism does seem to be on the wane as the lower leagues' dwindling stock of unsigned strikers one by one find themselves gigs where they can hit the corner flag in peace. After all, why do it here, where people give a stuff? It's just asking for trouble. And in case you thought there was still any remote chance that the hairs on your neck might reach the projected erectile state after all, Kevin Phillips, mooted by some wag for devilment, has definitely retired.

Reading this back, I can't escape the vaguest whiff of pessimism at a time of year when happy thoughts should be cantering through the buttercups without a rein. As a returned exile, I have to snobbishly admit that Conference football is somewhere below the standard which I would ideally like to be trapped in a broken lift with for the rest of my life. And, living in Cleethorpes, I can't forget it all on a Saturday night by going to the opera. Frankly I don't care if I never again in my life see another heap of celebrating amateur footballers two feet from my face in the bottom of a packed Pontoon.

I am, and I know it, one of the sorts of fans that Paul Hurst hates, who keep going on about the past. Well, yes – that could be because I still consider Arsenal our bogey team, and more to the point, it's how success is actually defined. When PH decides that football management is nothing but a thankless round of arguments with morons and takes a more sedate job with that BBC station where you're allowed to talk with a Yorkshire accent, I look forward to his daily round-up. "And the FTSE-100 is tonight down several thousand points, but hey, let's not dwell on what it was yesterday – this is where we are now, and this is what we've got to work with."