Cod Almighty | Diary

Then you remind me of laughing

16 October 2015

Every outfield player, every outfield player, occasionally lets the ball go under their foot and out for a throw. Gateshead did it at least three times two Tuesdays back. When the keeper does a similar thing, it goes in the net. There is no blame. It's a bummer, but it's just a wildcard goal – a head start - and that's it. Any fan can work out why it's the easy ones that go wrong.

The trouble is, and has always been, that when this happens, the next time the ball finds itself directed gently back towards the keeper there is the excruciating possibility, through nothing more than chance alone, that he will do it twice in two touches. We know that psychologically, the keeper isn't going to survive that, and we don't want it to happen, either for him or for us. It's a nerve-wracking and horrible couple of seconds which seem to go in slow motion, and we're praying for him to just clear the thing successfully.

Now ever since the beginning of football, when a keeper has made a catastrophic error, the next touch, if negotiated safely, is greeted with a build-up and a cheer. It has always happened. It is overwhelmingly a cheer of relief and, unless I've been living under a serious misconception for 50 years, built into that cheer is implied support for the keeper. Harry Wainman might have given a wry smile and an obscene gesture to the crowd and got another, even bigger cheer. Yes, it's got a tinge of sarcasm, but the kind of sarcasm whose dryness aims to diffuse, not inflame. That cheer says: "Well done, now we've forgotten it. We hope you have too – get on with the game and do well."

Deathly silence? Now that would be sarcastic.

Since that incident we have scored nine and conceded none, and James, I'm delighted to say, has kept goal with aplomb. So I feel it's safe to come out and talk about this now. I have spoken to a few Town fans about the little cheer when that unfortunate dolly dropper plopped over the line, and some believe that it was meant nastily, at least by some. If true, which I don't completely believe, then not only football, but the human condition, has changed fundamentally in my football-watching lifetime.

What a shame that in his post-Gateshead interview, Hursty chose that complex, ambiguous cheer as an excuse to pick a fight with the crowd, on a day when everybody was otherwise happy and together. If you know of any manager, by the way, who ever took on the crowd and won, please let me know.

It did occur to me that perhaps playing the victim can help the manager to motivate the players – and if so then it may be worth a try. Trust him, I'm always being told. But a siege mentality can't be something you use every week. Even at five-nil on Tuesday, were we to interpret the removal of Bogle (who was on a hat-trick) for Tomlinson as another little chip at the crowd? I know that managers get irritated if they loan out players to sit on another team's bench, and if it happens they are likely to recall them. That puts Hursty under pressure to play Tomlinson. But I'm afraid I don't buy the theory that dropping points is a good way to keep your strikers keen.

And yes, as Wicklow Diary suggested on Wednesday, the little bit of booing at the substitution was in no way directed at Tommo personally. He works hard and does his best, which is all we ask. We wanted him to score. It was disappointment at what seemed like a disruptive change in the middle of a rocking party, which not only made sure Bogle wouldn't get his first, confidence-boosting hat-trick, but whose motivation had a slight underlying suspicion of politics.

England's successful Euro qualifying campaign is now complete, and they did it without dropping a point. Supporting England has, however, invoked the usual complex mixture of feelings.

Notwithstanding the uncomfortable experience of being temporarily on the same side as Leeds fans, an England team containing the horrible Jamie Vardy will never be an easy watch for Town

Notwithstanding the uncomfortable experience of being temporarily on the same side as Leeds fans, an England team containing the horrible Jamie Vardy will never be an easy watch for Town. Previous England teams have all had their equivalents. Dele Alli too, whom you may have heard say was so delighted to return to Wembley this week after his first visit eight years ago, watching his beloved MK Dons (or as they're called in my house, BF Scums), get such a wonderful result against the hapless bottom-dwelling Grimsby – my words, not his, but we got the message.  

There's something about international football that makes me slightly nervous anyway, especially where England are concerned. I try to tell myself that world harmony is more likely with sport than without it. If two countries are playing each other at football, they're very unlikely to be simultaneously dropping bombs on each other, although, of course, it has happened.

But as soon as you flatter yourself how much football links the great family of humanity, images immediately pop into your head of fat cockney skinheads with necks like folded luncheon meat hurling plastic furniture at the German police, before a rousing chorus of the Dambusters March for the benefit of passing children. It can all make you glad to be one-sixteenth Icelandic.

Also, I can see how the ridiculous puffing-up of England by the media, and ludicrous weight of expectation – on a team who haven't won anything for, well, even longer than Newcastle – is grotesquely irritating to fans of the other home nations. And why, they must wonder, is Wembley half empty for the first and last ten minutes of a game? Sometimes I'm a little jealous of those Town fans who aren't English, who can indulge in a much more uncomplicated form of patriotism with their own few square miles of planet. But if England are one-nil up in the Euro final with ten minutes to go, you can be sure I'll be doing my nut just like all the rest.

Today, no doubt brimming with confidence after Tuesday's mauling of a fragile-looking Halifax, Town make the long trip to Torquay. Devon Diary will be in attendance at tomorrow's game, along with my brother and his friend Mark. So that's at least three away fans. According to the English National Football Archive, Torquay have the seventh most 'long-suffering' fans in the country (Rochdale's are the first). As described yesterday by Devon Diary, the Gulls' suffering is particularly acute at the moment, and while we hope that the fortunes of this respectable old League team will improve, we need to be showing no sympathy for 90 minutes tomorrow.

For us, Andy Monkhouse and Josh Gowling are missing. Gregor Robertson and JP are not quite right but available in an emergency, and Scott Brown is approaching full fitness again. Bogle and Amond, according to Hursty, will be "difficult to leave out". His choice of words says so much.

And finally, I give you this, from last week's clash between Boreham Wood and Welling. I've been waiting for this to happen for years. Yes, it's puerile, but go on, it's OK, you can laugh. UTM.