Cod Almighty | Diary

End this bacon madness

15 January 2016

Retro Diary writes: Well, it's one o' them Trophy weekends again. We ought to think ourselves lucky – if Wealdstone hadn't run out of puff in the last minute on Wednesday we'd have had no game at all. We ought to join Weston-super-Mare in thanking Paulton Rovers for their facilities, and giving us a game to watch tomorrow.

In his excellent new piece today, Rich Mills is right about the Trophy. But for many, primarily because of its disruptive influence, it is still a hard competition to love. I think we're slowly coming round to it, and although we were pointedly sniffy about it when we were fifth division newbies, it's now a project we try to embrace nobly and with enthusiasm as part of the great non-League family. Or at least, if we really can't get excited about it we've learned to keep schtum for risk of upsetting the big-time charlie police. Personally I will be attending tomorrow, and I want Town to win. There, can I have the contents of my pockets back please? Come on, whaddaya want, jam on it?

Now. You know sometimes when you think you're the first to notice something and it turns out everyone else was miles ahead of you? Well – have you realised that the FA Trophy final has been put back to the end of the season, and will now take place on Sunday 22 May, exactly one week after the Conference play-off final? OK, so you knew – but has the full horror of that situation sunk in yet?

If we lose tomorrow, or in the next round, or don't finish in the play-offs, then what I'm about to say will be irrelevant. But bear with me, and let's just assume for now that we reach the Trophy final, as it appears we are trying to do.

Cue soft-focus vignetting and tinkly chimes. Relax. Imagine. It's May – the venue, Wembley. Town are playing Bristol Rovers in the play-off final for a coveted place in the League. Both teams are completely knackered, and it's finished up going to penalties. JP strolls down the pitch towards the Town fans to take a game-saving spot kick. It sails over the bar – a massive, echoey gut-wrenching soundwave blasts across the pitch from the end in shadow. Rovers players run all over the turf and end up in a heap. You immediately head for the exit, employing every psychological tactic in your locker to protect your poor brain from trauma.

But hey, never mind, it's OK after all – we're coming back in a week's time to play Bristol Rovers again! That'll teach them. "Ha ha," we'll say, "they might have got promotion, but at least they'll never get our Trophy!"

Yes, exactly. Fuck right off.

So what were those nice people at the FA thinking? That they want two teams of retained trialists playing a practice match in front of a completely empty stadium on 22 May? Let's face it, North Ferriby aren't going to win it every year, are they. The whole thing seems ill thought out, and if you're us, or any other team in the play-offs, asking for trouble. OK, it might have been freezing when the final was in March, but at least the game wasn't set up to be the anticlimax from hell.

But there is another outcome, of course. Rewind VT – cue soft focus and tinkles again. Settle down. Town are playing Forest Green in the play-off final, for a coveted place in the League. Ninety per cent of the crowd are from Town, and the ref is strongly favouring us. Forest Green are down to nine men, the keeper having handled outside the box in the first half, and Parkin having pushed Gowling to the floor in the area, with Podge scoring the resulting penalty. The Wembley clock stands at 90, with Town two-nil up – a goal in each half. We've hit the woodwork twice – we're on top. All Forest Green's depleted team can do is lump the ball into touch. Surely we've done it. The Town fans are bouncing.

The final whistle blows – we are up! But wait – there's one, single remaining non-League fixture left to play, one last outing before we forget about the small time forever. This is going to be the biggest celebration ever – our Barnstoneworth United moment. Our golden age. What is this marvellous encore? Why, it's the Trophy final, against… er… [thinks] Dulwich Hamlet, here at Wembley, a week today. Hey, why even bother going home – bugger work, let's stay down here and make this the biggest party ever.

[Snap] and… you're back in the room. So OK, let's go as far as we can in the Trophy. But what this horrible timing means, if you hadn't worked it out already, is that victory in the Trophy makes victory in the league doubly important. Yes, you're right, this could get quite silly, and I'm already a bit nervous about it.

So tomorrow, for a mere tenner, you can see yet another one of those completely novel fixtures we've come to love so much. Intuitively I found myself favouring Weston-super-Mare over Wealdstone, although the Stones' obvious disappointment in defeat endeared them to me somewhat. Wealdstone is one of those terrible anonymous boroughs in London's zone of sprawl, but Weston-super-Mare is a proper town, like our own in many ways, surrounded by green, with a pier and sea and everything.

I like Weston-super-Mare a lot as a place, but my memories of it aren't exclusively positive. In one of those 'you remember where you were when…' moments, I'll never forget someone coming up to me at Pontins at Brean Sands and telling me that Town were four-nil down to Lincoln at the break and Russell Slade was taking the half-time team talk on the pitch. I thought they were taking the piss. Well you would, wouldn't you.

Weston-super-Mare, 'the Seagulls', have the smallest playing budget in the Conference South, so in a sense are overachieving. Their claim to fame is that they've never been relegated. Actually they have, three times in the last ten years, but were reprieved every time, which if you ask me is nothing really to brag about. They haven't been promoted very far either, which is the catch.

Remarkably, Weston have won four of their last seven games 3-2 (please note they beat Chelmsford on 9 January, rather than losing to them as the Telegraph's form guide suggests).

Weston-super-Mare's away kit is a smart navy-and-red-halves jobby, but watch out – against Havant & Waterlooville three years ago they forgot to take it with them. They wore Havant's away kit that day, but if it happens tomorrow we should make them go skins. Hey, we're not a charity – this is the FA Trophy, and this year, we want it.

For us, James McKeown is almost certainly in goal. After that it's anybody's guess, but there could be a second-ish feel to the team. JP is expected to replace Podge up front. UTM.