Cod Almighty | Diary

What if climate change is a hoax and we create a better world for nothing?

2 October 2015

Retro Diary writes: In the top five tiers of English football only eight teams have ever won the first nine games of the season on the bounce. Only one of those didn't finish the season topping the division: Manchester United in 1985-86. They actually won their first ten, but finished only fourth. Try not to laugh. Poor loves.

After nine games of this season the rest of us in the Conference Premier had packed up and pledged to spend next year's Operation Promotion II money on beer and fags, as moneyed minnows Forest Green peered down on the rest from a height. But suddenly, since game ten – a 2-1 defeat to Woking – they can't win for toffee, losing everything before them except for 'El Glosico' (the Cheltenham derby, for those not interested enough in Gloucestershire to ask), which they drew 2-2. They are now, having been already promoted in most people's minds, within lurching distance of the hounds.

Winning everything up to a random point then losing everything is a funny old turnaround, and shows beautifully the effect that confidence can have on the guiding of a football round a pitch. I shudder to think of the meltdown that our fans would be in if that happened to us. But Rovers fans have responded quietly (which is how they do most things), and with their feet.

We shouldn't be too cocky – Rovers haven't become crap overnight, and in last Saturday's narrow home defeat to Gateshead they missed enough sitters to have won the game five times. Aaron O'Connor was the main culprit. He was Newport's top scorer last season. But then Lenell was ours.

Forest Green were, for most of history, that funny team from football's leafy basement who played in exactly the same kit as Town. Then, when they went all solar panels and vegan catering, they changed completely to the current lurid incarnation – a kit that only a mother could love – and the 'Town' strip became their away kit.

Actually, hoops at home and stripes away is taking the piss a bit – and two weeks ago they finally dumped the black and white stripes and red socks altogether, introducing a new-look all-white away strip. Now, their (new) club badge has black and white stripes but their kit doesn't. At this point they're starting to look a bit like a team reinventing themselves by committee. Anyway, I think we take their rejection of our timeless masterpiece of a kit – which, as we know, comes from God – as a sign of either poor judgment or foolishness.

Forest Green's is the only home kit I've ever known that clashes with grass

Yes, you heard that right – they only unveiled their new away kit two weeks ago. It is, of course, because they don't really need an away kit. Can you think of a single team in the world who would need to change in order not to clash with that? It's the only home kit I've ever known that clashes with grass.

In his post-Gateshead interview last week, Forest Green's flying winger Elliott Frear described their competitors at the top of this league as the "so-called better sides". Now it wasn't an aggressive interview, and he didn't seem to mean any insult by it. But from deep within his subconscious came "so-called better sides". What was he saying? That he thinks Forest Green are still better then the rest of us, despite taking only one point from twelve?

What he might be saying, of course, is that there are no good teams in this division and never have been. In this, of course, he would be right, which is what makes it so frustrating that we can't get out of the bloody thing. For that comment, though, tomorrow I think we need to give him and his team a little kick up the so-called arse.

Forest Green's eco credentials, which address some of society's most enduring stupidities, are something from which we should all learn. Football is about nothing if not continuity and, in a way which shames us all, Rovers are already inhabiting a more enlightened future. When we finally attain a world where, because we don't need them any more, climate-changing fossil fuels are too cheap to bother extracting from the ground, and pigs aren't routinely tortured for half-time hot dogs, I hope Rovers are still around to say that they were first. For all the many things about them that we don't admire, that, at least, they deserve.

Now as you know, I'm one of those Town fans wot's never 'appy, so forgive me for saying this. But having gone four-nil up in the 46th minute against Southport last week (which, don't get me wrong, was brilliant), was it just me who thought the last 44 minutes of the game were spent needlessly practising being desultory, and wasting a golden opportunity to rack up some serious goal difference? We now leave ourselves in a position where we need a substantial step-up to face the league leaders, rather than, as is always preferable, a seamless transition. The always heroic Shaun Pearson, whose attempts at diplomacy often turn out to be nicely frank, said as much in interview this week.

I'd love to know the origin of the bizarre notion that games don't matter so much if they're early in the season, which we hear implied so often. If anybody would care to provide me with a formula or a nice diagram to explain why three points in September aren't worth the same as three in April, please feel free to have a go, and good luck.

What I think people are saying is that how big a problem dropping points is can't be evaluated until you know how many you're going to need. Either that, or that the season is long enough to catch up a deficit of any size. Either way, it doesn't stand up to much mathematical scrutiny. It makes much more sense, surely, to play every game from August onwards as though you need a win and a whole bunch of goals to ensure promotion – because if only you knew it, that might very well be the truth.

For us, Craig Clay is touch and go with a 'knock', and Craig Disley is one booking away from suspension. With Brown out and no midfield loan signing on the horizon, kicking one of the two Craigs hard and early would be a good game plan for Rovers – and they've got the players to do it. Maybe this is where we see Josh Venney or Harry Clifton come of age?

On the plus side, Gowling and Amond are back in contention after their knee and ankle problems respectively. Nathan Arnold isn't mentioned at all, so we assume he's still missing. Omar should be fired up after Hursty accused him of wearing strapping when there was nothing wrong with him. Let's hope that what looks like super man-management doesn't go wrong, and he's not fired up to prove that he's actually injured. He wouldn't do that, surely. UTM.