Cod Almighty | Diary

Will the dog teams be riding horses and wearing red jackets?

31 July 2015

Retro Diary writes: This week I have heard people say that with all this winning they are worried that our expectations for the season are now too high. This astonishing negativity could just be our habituation to failure, as articulated beautifully yesterday by your original/regular Diary. Or it could be the human brain's built-in precautionary pessimism, designed to reduce the severity of disappointments.

But things are going too well even for the most joyless curmudgeon to moan about. If we discount last night's youth team run-out at Grantham, which our kids lost on penalties, we're looking nigh on invincible. Even if you start out (as Town do) in the fourth qualifying round of the FA Cup, eight consecutive wins against randomly chosen opposition would wind you up in the final. Like it or not, Town are never, ever going to lose again – full stop. No, no, shut up. Even with zero points on the board, I'm confident that the world domination we always knew would come is under way and ultimately a foregone conclusion.

I know that pre-season games don't count for anything, but I enjoy them immensely. There's something deliciously carefree about them. And because there's nothing at stake, it's almost football in its purest form.

And if there's something a bit wet and self-defeating about 'friendly' football, of course these games don't stay friendly for long. Footballers are mostly simple creatures and by the second half of each game the congeniality has been well and truly forgotten, and both teams just want to kick lumps off each other and win.

Last Saturday, Notts County, a mere one division above Town, were made to look ineffective and were brushed aside. For them, veteran Alan Smith looked overweight, desultory, hirsute, and rather too right-footed for his left centre-back role. After a long career spent turning out for the world's most dislikeable teams (including 19 caps for England), a couple of glimpses of quality weren't enough to quell Town's new tenaciousness, and he was replaced. County, in another hideous strip (don't get me started), became anonymous.

Now I used to live in Peterborough, and 'posh' it is not. On Tuesday night their boys in blue, however, looked high on talent and organisation, and they took the lead with a screamer. I almost clapped, but I'm not about to start that kind of nonsense at my time of life.

Even in this sternest of pre-season tests, though, Town grew into the game and eventually took control. They closed down, they won second balls, and they pinged it around without an upward glance. We haven't seen flowing moves like our equaliser since footballers wore hotpants and had poodle hair. The wickedly deflected winner was the perfect example of the luck that you supposedly 'make your own' of.

And in the first 15 minutes of the second half we got our first glimpse of what our starting line-up for Kiddy might look like. After that, the usual destructive substitutions (which we can excuse for reasons of pre-season experimentation) evened it out a bit. How wonderful to see that Posh's introduction of diving little shit Marcus Maddison had absolutely no effect and didn't stop us winning. How could anything be more perfectly karmic than that.

So what, we ask, can possibly go wrong this year? Well, injuries of course. We've got Lincoln horribly early, and we traditionally play the three games immediately afterwards with limps.

Also, what if there's another team in the division who are as good as us? This can only, surely, be Tranmere. Can we see us lining up at Prenton Park in the last game with both teams on 110 points, with third place awaiting the losers, far, far behind? I don't even want to think about that.

So no news is good news from here on. As long as the Telegraph is publishing back page headlines in the format 'player x utters platitude y', all is well with the world. Stop worrying and enjoy your day.

Today's transfer trivia is that Daniel Parslow has signed for Cheltenham. It's a good move for him, with his family being in Cardiff. He wasn't a bad player, but became the whipping boy by being repeatedly brought off the bench when we needed him least. When we play them, watch out for something game-changing to happen in the 70th minute – it wouldn't be Parslow without the 'Parslow point'.

Tomorrow it's Boston away, and on Sunday it's the Mariners Trust Family Open Day at Blundell Park. You get the chance to take a penalty against James McKeown, but if you're in any way normal, or your memory goes back as far as May, you'll find scoring way too painful. There is also a chance to have your hair cut by Nathan Arnold, but judging by his own barnet watch out he doesn't leave you looking like Kid 'n' Play. There will be all the usual open day stuff, and kids can get autographs and pictures.

Talking of which, Town's strangest team photo ever was taken this week. Look bottom right for 'midfielder' Andrew Newman, looking smug and rightly so. We don't know what foot he kicks with but I understand he makes a mean crème brûlée. It was pouring with rain, which doesn't come across until you wonder why some are laughing, some are visibly cowering and the rest just look plain pissed off. One wonders whether Lawrie McMenemy would ever have allowed front row players to be photographed with their hands on each other's knees, even in jest.

UTM!