Cod Almighty | Diary

Nuneaton mess

12 December 2014

Retro Diary writes: Be afraid, be very afraid; tomorrow the FA Trophy is back.

This year, Carl Magnay's 'beyond reproach' status got him lumbered with the job of delivering the annually repeated platitude that 'we will not let the FA Trophy distract us from the league'. Of course, if you hadn't realised yet, Carl, we are distracted already, or you wouldn't have had to mention it.

Is it the horrific fixture pile-up that bothers us so much, or the injuries and suspensions? Is it the fact that we could finish up playing Barnet six times in four months, including once in the silly Trophy on the same day we that should be playing them in the league? Or is it the fact that proximity to a Wembley final traditionally shows a very strong positive correlation with ghastly, lacklustre league showings, up to and including the point where the twin towers loom into view and we can no longer tackle properly for fear of being booked or injured?

In short, do we want to have a concerted go at finishing top, or stagger tamely into the play-offs again?

In a way, we may be asking too much of the players, some of whom are perpetually nine months away from the dole queue, and may not even be at the club next year. For them, playing at Wembley is a much more attractive proposition than watching them there is for us. What for them is a momentous life-defining moment is for us a long coach ride to an empty stadium for the privilege of watching Brodie miss a penalty on the coldest day in London's history. Maybe the answer would be to play the final at Brentford instead.

Earlier in the season I was heard to utter that I didn't think we should even have filled in the application form for this horrible competition – apparently there's no rule that says we have to. Actually, I've changed my mind on this – it would be arrogant and anti-football to deny some of the lower leagues' amateur pretenders their 'free hit' at us. What would we think of a Premier League team who pulled out of the FA Cup in case they got Tamworth? No – every player in an ill-fitting shirt should get a chance to be Ronnie Radford.

In fact, we have been handed a lifeline in all of this. What better draw than Nuneaton away to slip out of the competition without being noticed? A bit of slack early marking from a corner (oops), switch to 4-5-1 so there's no chance of any further goals, and the job's a good 'un. Trophy results are impossible to find in the papers; nobody would even notice.

Of course there are more conventional ways of going out on purpose. Using competitions you don't like for a third-team run-out used to be frowned upon. But these days that argument has been had and lost, and the practice is accepted. Maybe we should play all those players who can't normally get a game, in the same formation played by the first team for good practice, and reward any accidental victory by giving the same eleven another bash?

Am I joking with any of this? Well, there's a question. It all depends very much on whether you could ever, ever, want to see Town lose. Personally I'm not saying. But I would certainly bring back the stocks for anybody even thinking about ruddy Wembley during a league match.

For any fan 'doing' the Trophy this year, it has been decided that the tie will be settled tomorrow: that is to say, there will be no replay in the event of a draw. This is a shame really, as Nuneaton's away kit could beat us on its own.

If you need cheering up, hidden cryptically among the torrent of non-news this week was a little nugget which made me sit up. Apparently, in training Hamish Watson has "proved himself to be a very, very good finisher". This is like one of the cast of Skint casually slipping into the conversation that he has an ISA about to mature. One hopes that this assessment is true, bearing in mind that consistent very, very good finishing is previously unknown in Conference football – in fact, its absence is a defining feature.

If he can finish, though, maybe we shouldn't risk him tomorrow...