Cod Almighty | Diary

We all have feet of clay

25 August 2015

Middle-Aged Diary was going to rehash the arguments around last Saturday's team selection, arguing that while dropping four players was an over-reaction to the defeat by Altrincham, it should not completely offset Paul Hurst's many qualities as a manager. He has the best eye for a player of any Town manager since at least Russell Slade and arguably Alan Buckley. But calling for balance four days later is probably only going to prolong a debate I wanted to end.

I was going to use the following passage, but actually what worked in the late 70s for a team closing on promotion is not necessarily what's best for a team four games into the 2015-16 season. Still, it's a good story, so here goes.

"We suffered a shocking 4-0 reverse at the hands of Reading at their Elm Park ground on a rain-sodden Tuesday night. George Kerr said very little after the game but told us to report for training the next morning instead of enjoying the more customary day off. Until that game we had been on a quite remarkable unbeaten run, playing some excellent football and defeating nearly everyone that we faced... We arrived back in Grimsby after three in the morning. The sombre mood only deepened when George reiterated the 10:00am start as we left the coach.

"Fully expecting a verbal volley and a running session to end them all, you can just imagine our surprise when, on that Wednesday morning the manager walked through the dressing room door to greet us with a bottle of champagne and a quote... The Notts County manager Jimmy Sirrell had told him 'George, it's better to have had a bubble that's burst than to have never had a bubble at all'. So we drank a toast to the end of the run followed by a jog along Cleethorpes beach to partake of breakfast in one of the cafés."

(from The Tony Ford Story)

If we find it hard to take a balanced view of managers, we are slightly more willing to accept the flaws of at least some players. So let's have your suggestions for the very worst weaknesses of players who were otherwise excellent. Here are a few thoughts of my own.

Goalkeepers are probably a bit too easy. However, command of the penalty area is probably a bit too fundamental to their game to write off Steve Sherwood and Danny Coyne's crossophobia as a foible. Paul Crichton's clearances on the other hand brought excited anticipation to the otherwise dull pause of a back-pass.

Neither Dave Gilbert nor Gary Childs could tackle. Except that one time at Stoke when Childs suddenly put his foot in in a way that would have had Shaun Cunnington up on his feet, glowering and pumping his arms triumphantly at his felled opponent. We responded with a kind of stunned laughter.

Middle-Aged Diary yields to no-one in his admiration for Neil Woods, but I will admit he wasn't the quickest. Actually, he had a kind of lumbering pace, like a rhino. The sudden sprint was beyond him, but if he was given time and space to pick up speed, he became quite formidable. OK, quite formidable.

The heading ability of forwards seems to be in the spotlight at the moment, so which otherwise decent striker has been our worst header? Keith Alexander scored with a good one against Wimbledon, but otherwise, I recall him as not only having 'a surprisingly good touch' but also being surprisingly ineffectual in the air 'for a big man.'

Over to you, except to say that when I argue for balance when it comes to managers, that doesn't include Mike Lyons or Nicky Law, obviously.