Cod Almighty | Diary
Do not press this button
28 August 2015
Retro Diary writes: The early part of this week was characterised by the old balancing act of trying to tell Hursty that he's made a catastrophic tactical error sufficiently gently that he doesn't get mardy. I'm endlessly impressed with our local media's soft-footedness in this respect. I'm sure there's a job in the United Nations for John Tondeur if he wants it, following years of practice pursuing the timidest and most diplomatic lines of questioning anybody could wish to be on the receiving end of.
The Telegraph described Hurst's team selection last Saturday with characteristic understatement as 'controversial'. Although superficially a rather mild adjective, the fact that our lapdog daily mentioned it at all is startling enough to indicate a mini-crisis.
Our manager said a couple of things this week that caused particular concern. Firstly (paraphrasing slightly): it's a game of opinions, and it's mine that matters – it's me the players have to appease, not the fans. When considering all the levels on which this statement rings alarm bells, I'll leave you to decide which one clangs the loudest. Having dropped the undroppable against Torquay, Hursty responded by making the happy observation that we had a "strong bench". Well, yes.
So why am I still banging on about this six days later, when every previous diary this week has tried to move it on? I'll tell you why – because it's not going to change. The language coming from the manager does not suggest an epiphany. There will be no wholesale move away from the micro-management of players' comfort zones irrespective of end result. Neither does there seem any prospect of us simply putting our best eleven on the pitch and leaving them there – a tactic which any other manager in the Conference would give his right arm to be able to do to the high standard that we can.
Tomorrow it's your favourite away game and mine, as we make the short trip to Lincoln. At this point I normally introduce our opponents, but on this occasion it hardly seems necessary. Let's start with the fact that Town have beaten Lincoln 47 times, to Lincoln's 30 wins. Lincoln have never been in the top flight. Right – now we've established who the pride of Lincolnshire is (in case anyone tomorrow thinks it's in doubt), let's proceed.
No doubt Hursty will tell the players to play the game, not the occasion, as managers always do when trying to stop their players from getting carried away by a baying crowd. But here are some reasons why we must always assert our dominance over Lincoln.
Firstly, we here in Grimsby and Cleethorpes are very happy, sometimes even proud, to say we reside in the great county of Lincolnshire – a name which includes the word 'Lincoln'. The new Lincolnshire flag, which flies above numerous institutions and gardens round our parts, features a gold fleur-de-lys in a red cross, which is the symbol of the City of Lincoln. For our football teams, this all constitutes a nasty case of identity overlap, and as we know, in football, identities must, by law, be incompatible.
Lincoln, in its best parts, is quite a nice place. On the downside, it has no sea and the world's silliest one-way system. But this is more than made up for by having the county's most impressive building by an absolute mile, and one of the greatest in the country. In addition, Lincoln Castle has its version of the Magna Carta, a contribution to civilisation by which we can only be humbled. In its retail outlets, Lincoln caters for arty types, vegetarians and people who can read, in a way that Grimsby does not.
Sincil Bank has always been a bit of a dump, but the now 20-year-old Co-op Stand is relatively impressive, and I would be happy to have one the same in Mister F's future dream arena, so long as the other three stands were at least as good. At grotty old Sincil Bank, of course, they most certainly are not.
The Telegraph talks of 'bragging rights', but in fact no-one ever gets to do any bragging, as there are next to no Lincoln fans in Grimsby, or vice versa. We meet their horrible hordes but twice a year, and hopefully even that won't be for much longer.
Both of tomorrow's squads include two of the other's alumni. We have ex-Imps Josh Gowling and Marcus Marshall, while they have ex-Mariners Bradley Wood and Liam Hearn. Wood is a player who most definitely counts as 'one of ours'. Whether Hearn does or not, nobody is quite sure.
It was after about the third time that JP came to cover at left-back that we knew something was seriously wrong
Nobody has ever told us why Hearn's time with Town was brought to a premature conclusion (if you remember, Town paid him up), or why we never thought of signing him back. We were left, in a kind of information semi-vacuum, to infer that his injuries at the time were career-ending – an analysis which seems in retrospect to be an error. Don't get me wrong: I would never criticise a medical assessment made in good faith – hindsight is a wonderful thing. But it would be nice to know the facts before he pops up and scores against us, apparently in rude health.
So no, tomorrow is not just another game of football. If Town, after all, never do win the European Cup and World Club Championship, we may find that derby matches have been the peaks, the pinnacles, the Christmases (sometimes literally), indeed the very point, of our football-watching lives. Every Town fan can tell you the scores of all the Lincoln away matches going back through the years, and everyone can remember their first.
Last year's derby will be remembered as the one we lost, but which would have been easier to win. Hursty took a set of players which was far superior to Lincoln's down the A46, and set them up in one of the most contrarily odd formations ever seen. It was after about the third time that JP came to cover at left-back that we knew something was seriously wrong, but we stumbled on, fighting hard against victory, until finally succumbing to the sapping cumulative effects of rampant disorganisation in the second-to-last minute.
We won't forgive the same thing a second time, but the signs from Torquay are already ominous. We know from the Barrow and Bromley games that our two centre-forwards simultaneously teasing the opponents' offside trap are pretty much unplayable. So (of course, for it is the Hurst way) we started the very next game without our top scorer, playing something like an old, failed, 4-5-1, with nobody being able to pass to their own man without looking up first. If you can't believe we're still having the '4-5-1 at home' conversation in late August 2015, then no, neither can I.
A couple of final thoughts. It does not matter that the opposition knows how we're going to play, if we're still too good for them. It does not matter if our players are lairy and complacent, as long as they are invincible on the pitch. Please can we just let our best eleven and their best eleven thrash it out. We might lose the odd game now and again, which we can take, but at least we won't feel, like last year at Sincil Bank, that we've pointlessly chucked in the towel on one of the moments of our lives.
Tomorrow, Radio Humberside has four matches (including Hull KR at Wembley) to split between three frequencies, so Town's commentary is relegated to computer/phone. If you're not one of the lucky 1,795 and all you have is a radio, you'll have to listen to the game on Radio Lincolnshire. I recommend you do this anyway, especially after the match – their ridiculous derby day bias is comedy at its best.
Eyes down and here we go. Strong refereeing, please – you know what they're like.