Cod Almighty | Diary

Reality bites

22 June 2015

All this positivity has been making me itch. Where's the hitch? Ah, yes. Your Deviant Diary remembers it well: last season.

You must remember this: a miss is still a miss, a sigh is still a sigh; for TMFKAS the fundamental things apply. "Keep it tight, keep us shape" is his morning, noon and night-time mantra. Bogle fever? A temporary hysteria treatable with Mogadon management and psychotherapeutic coaching. So why didn't Town get promoted last season?

Hurst has spoken:

"Strikers obviously make a huge difference to the team. But at the same time, you only have to look at Bristol Rovers for an example that success can be built on having a good defence. Their promotion was largely built on a good defensive record, and if you look at things historically, that is often the case."

Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.

Bristol Rovers were promoted through a penalty shoot-out. One error by Pittman and several errors by the referee. Luck. They were the strongest team in the division; Town were the second strongest team. But both were obsessed with defending, an approach starting from a negative, and infusing everything. Through fear, Town and Rovers let an inferior team get automatic promotion in a very ordinary division. That's not a basis for success. That's stupidity.

Those who repeat the past are doomed. That's what we've learned.

I was going to waffle on about the conversation I had with a referee from the top division of a European league, who was an official in one of the last set of European Championship games. "That's a red card, no question, that's easy… oh… I guess you're telling me this because the keeper wasn't sent off. Oh dear… oh… that's... err… oh." But then again, success is built on a strong defence, not such amateur dramatics as the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune in the lottery of the play-offs.

By the time you read this Town will have probably bought another exciting jigsaw puzzle and everyone will be down the tattoo parlour celebrating with an inflatable fish. Stop. Think. Remember the past. Why will next season be any different from last season (and the season before, and the season before) if Town play the same way?

Do what you want to do and go where you're going to. But think for yourself.