Cod Almighty | Diary
World is suddener than we fancy it
21 August 2015
Retro Diary writes: Well, the honeymoon is over. Just to add some final thoughts to the unpleasant business of Tuesday night before we put a lid on it: let's start with no, of course the ball didn't, even nearly, cross the line. So can anybody explain this to me? If something untoward happens and the official doesn't see it, that's incompetence. But if the official blows his whistle for something that hasn't happened, then he can't have seen it and it can only be cheating.
An extreme view? Why? How can an official possibly blow up or flag for something that hasn't happened, without it being cheating? I'm in my 41st consecutive year of asking this question without getting even the remotest sniff of an answer, yet it crops up in pretty much every game.
The boring, and I suspect truthful, solution to Tuesday's version of this common conundrum is that what the linesman saw in the net was in fact Michael Rankine's white sock, possibly in combination with Danny East's white boot. But it doesn't matter how many times I watch it again, the dickhead still gives the goal.
And to all those people who say "accept it – we didn't play well enough anyway", I say that if football is going to degenerate to the point where goals are given that don't actually go in, it could (and it's just a suggestion) be a problem for the whole concept of football. Why bother playing the game at all if you're going to just make up the winner.
I once had to go to hospital in a hurry and was given a great big dose of morphine before being left in an unattended bed. It was a pretty chilled-out couple of hours staring at the ceiling, being high, and thinking about nothing. Before Tuesday evening that's what this season felt like. Carefree invincibility. Like we were going to have the most joyously restful, victory-littered season of all time. Well, that comforting prospect has now been well and truly upended, and we're settling in for another frustrating season of catch-up, during which every mention of the play-offs will result in us putting our fingers in our ears and humming something simple from a distant childhood uncluttered by torment.
But that morphine-like state of bliss, of course, isn't reality. Reality is a crumpled tapestry of good and shite. It comprises imperfect people rubbing up against an imperfect environment, and in the friction created does all of life's intrigue, romance and interest lie. You wouldn't actually want it any other way.
The alternative to losing occasionally is world domination. Is that really what we want? To be so invincible that the whole world of football is brought into a state of semi-pointlessness because nobody can beat us? Would we want the World Club Championship to become devalued, and the World Cup seen as a sideshow to the Mariners' global exhibition matches?
Er, yes please! Well, I would anyway (why do the words 'up yours, Lincoln' spring to mind). What's more, I expect it all to happen in my lifetime. That's why I take every useless cheating dickhead linesman robbing us of points on a Tuesday night at the J Davidson Scrap Stadium like a stake to the heart. And I'm not inclined to say it's all OK just because we didn't play all that well for the rest of the game. Dickhead linesman needs an eye test.
Being a footballer is worth a stab. But as a goalie you can't score, and your mistakes are often catastrophic. Being a goalie seems like a slightly stupid version of a basically good idea
On a more positive note, I agree wholeheartedly with your original/regular Diary's sentiments yesterday about goalkeepers. Now I can just about see why someone would want to be a goalie. The trappings of being any sort of footballer probably make it worth a stab as a career choice, providing it all goes well. But as a goalie you can't score, and your mistakes are often catastrophic. Being a goalie seems like a slightly stupid version of a basically good idea.
I can tell you now, if a ball were bobbling gently towards me across the turf with an open goal gaping behind me, with thousands of people watching and TV cameras up in the stands, I would let it in. I am basically too sensitive to be a goalkeeper. If anything is harder than it looks, I suspect it's that.
To me, the only crime a keeper can commit is to not try. Everything else is excusable. If he's the one we've chosen to act as our representative – the last line of defence between a wet ball kicked hard and our worst nightmares – then he, and only he, can mess up. If you put someone in such a thankless position, it seems grossly unfair to criticise them when it goes wrong.
That is, of course, why Jimmy Mac didn't receive anything but wholehearted support after the ill-fated Gateshead semi last year, and rightly so. It would be easy, this year, to point out that every defender gets taught from the age of six that when faced with a hospital ball you instinctively control it, or whack it, sideways away from the goal, and that if a shot is travelling miles wide, not to bring it back into play. But that's without ridiculous amounts of pressure, low confidence and the after-effects of meningitis.
So that's why our likeable keeper won't be getting any stick from me. Everyone in that ground is willing him to do well. He's part of our family, and I suggest we get behind him with everything we've got. And, Andy Warrington, you could help an' all. That boy needs a bit of love.
Tomorrow it's Torquay, and everything we know about football's natural ebb and flow says we don't win. A more comprehensive account of our opponents than that provided by our man on the spot Devon Diary on Monday would be hard to imagine. All I can add is what I've read on their fans' forum, where one fan describes the residents of Torquay as being "short on both IQ points and teeth". Now I've been to Torquay. It's very nice indeed, and I can say from experience that it's definitely not fair about the teeth.
The Gulls had referee problems of their own on Tuesday night, when the fourth official misread the Torquay coach's handwriting for a substitution, and held up the wrong numbers on his board. When number 17 (instead of the intended number 7) had put a foot over the touchline to come off, mindless jobsworth Brett Huxtable wouldn't let him back on. Woking then scored in the 90th minute to win 1-0.
I've got an idea – why don't we just not bother playing these matches and just ask the officials to decide who wins? It would save so much time and trouble. If they do make us go through the sweaty to-and-fro of actually playing tomorrow, watch out for Torquay's number six, charmless lump Exodus Geohaghon, who has a very, very long throw.