Cod Almighty | Diary

No farce, please

7 July 2015

It's a day – a season – for tenth anniversaries. (For Middle-Aged Diary, Wales winning their first Grand Slam in a quarter-century, playing the kind of rugby Alan Buckley might coach, just beats the 2005 Ashes.) So let me help the Blundell Park box office's attempts to drum up some enthusiasm for Saturday's visit of Derby County. Come August, it will be ten years since Russell Slade's Mariners travelled to Pride Park for a League Cup tie and won 1-0.

The team sheet alone is worth a perusal. Half of it is the stuff of younger fans' best ever teams: Steve Mildenhall in goal, Macca still going strong, the Joneses Gary and Rob, Justin Whittle, Michael Reddy. We've not fielded a better balanced strike partnership since than 'Lumpaldinho' and Reddy, and I'm not sure we've ever played a more robust pair of central defenders than Jones the Stick and 'Sarge' Whittle. The midfield, it must be said, was more of a mixed bag. Players who might have made their name, but didn't.

After beating Derby, Jean-Paul Kamudimba Kalala's late goal beat Spurs. Then Alan Shearer's lip made acquaintance with Whittle's elbow, followed by a rather more intimate relationship with the media's microphones as he iterated, reiterated and re=reiterated how he wasn't going to go on about the incident.

Between times, we were going well in the league. Had the season stopped in 2005, we might have been fourth-flight champions. Had it stopped any time before it actually did, we'd have been promoted. It was a golden era in the making, but it didn't get made. Russell Slade left soon after. In fact, spiritually he left some time between beating Lincoln in the play-off semi-final and the final against Cheltenham, after contract talks with John Fenty broke down.

For the next few years, as a succession of managers talked about a passing game, Slade was the poster boy for pragmatism. My own take remains a bit different. After assembling a squad of such potential, including midfield players capable of a bit more than watching the ball fly over their heads, the 2005-06 season is proof that a limited game plan always leaves you in danger of falling short.

Even in defeat, our play-off final against Bristol Rovers laid the ghosts of a succession of underwhelming Town performances on set-piece occasions. It was an unfortunate habit first established in Cardiff in 2006. I trust that in May 2016, we won't be re-running a tenth anniversary recreation.