Cod Almighty | Diary

What do you mean, you haven't put in your entries for the Erratic XI yet?

30 December 2014

Middle-Aged Diary saw one match pre-McMenemy and then another in the 1971-72 championship season. Even to an eight-year-old – the trip to Blundell Park an annual treat – the difference in atmosphere between the two occasions was palpable, if also intangible. Something about the way my father and grandfather were looking forward to the game, not just my brothers and me. Something about the way I heard people talking about the team. Something about the sense of expectation around the ground, and among the players. The details of that game are sketchy, but I do remember the pattern of the goals: 1-0, 1-1, 2-1.

We talk a lot about the ability of a side to recover from going behind. This season we have eight times (from memory) conceded the first goal. Five of those games we lost, the other three we drew. We talk much less about recovering from conceding an equaliser. Twice we have gone on to win, at Torquay and at home to Forest Green. Twice we've had to settle for a point, in August against Dover, and at Altrincham. The last time is still too painful to need rubbing in.

None of that is statistically significant, but when a side has a generally good defensive record, the impact when they do concede is that bit greater. And the times when we have not recovered from letting a lead slip are significant: at home, seeking our first win of the season; against a relegation struggler; and in a local derby in front of a sell-out home crowd.

Expectation is a fact of life at Blundell Park. We can sink under it, or we can turn it into confidence, the kind of confidence that can recover from a setback.

The comparison with 1971-72 is interesting. You need only look at the facts to see that during the sixties we turned from a club yo-yoing between the second and third divisions to one in the bottom half of the fourth. Neville Butt takes up the story with recollections of a 4-2 defeat to Colchester during Christmas 1968 in "drab, dismal and gooey conditions".

"What I remember was the amount of room in which to move in the Main Stand standing area, with gates at a low level. Manager Bobby Kennedy had an awful lot of work to do as we suffered the prolonged after-effects from the sales of a reasonable first team with Matt Tees, Rod Green, Brian Hill, Graham Taylor, and Charlie Wright among those departing. Nevertheless, Kennedy pieced together a good team ready-made for Lawrie McMenemy. Kennedy's record for his last eleven games was won seven, drawn three and lost one."

McMenemy, Neville recalls, acknowledged Kennedy's work creating the squad that won promotion. However, what McMenemy could do was turn that squad into a team which revelled in expectation. For what its worth, I don't doubt that Paul Hurst is a good football man with a track record of bringing in decent players. I am too young to worship at the feet of McMenemy. But it is impossible not to feel we need, from somewhere, a little bit of what McMenemy brought to Grimsby to turn around a long-term decline.