Cod Almighty | Diary

It’s always tease, tease, tease

24 October 2016

Open Diary writes: Today is surely the day the suspense will come to an end. Will he stay or will he go? Sometime this morning there will be an announcement one way or the other. In fact, by the time you read this, it will probably be spread all over the Twittersphere.

Hursty’s reign at Blundell Park has been marked by alternate fine days, or weekends, and black ones. So it was on Saturday. Having comfortably seen off Cambridge at their place last Saturday, this weekend we succumbed to Cheltenham, our nemesis since that dire day in 2006 at the Millennium Stadium.

That year we beat them home and away in the league scoring four and conceding none so it was one of those pivotal moments, and look at what followed. We didn’t get promoted to the third division, Michael Reddy didn’t get sold for £350,000 which would have helped us re-build, and Russell Slade jumped ship to next weekend’s oppo’s Yeovil.

On the basis of history repeating itself, losing by the odd goal to the Chelts will be followed by a scarcely unforeseen managerial departure to an obscure club in the West Country. At least, that’s the way I expect it to be. If he wasn’t going to go, why keep us in suspense for the best side of a week? What goes around comes around, and we kid ourselves that the delights of north Lincolnshire outweigh the lures of west country meadows and pastures, not to mention new stadia and ambitious owners.

So, seeing as how what’s done is done, and what’s past is over we’ll need to turn our minds to the future. As we all know the club’s track record on previous senior management appointments hasn’t been enviable in recent years. Not only have we managed to lose successful incumbents – Russell Slade being one example, we’ve replaced them with some pretty disastrous imports, like Newell and Law or some club loyalists like Graham Rodger and Neil Woods, who were nice guys but neither of whom were cut out to turn things around. In any case as Rob Scott eventually told us we didn’t have any "facking money”. That’s still the big problem.

Seeing as how he’s coming back as our Academy Manager I have always felt that Woods was faced from the start with a task that would have defeated most ordinary mortals. When he did this job last time the yoofs did OK and won some silverware which they paraded around the ground, so let’s hope he can work that bit of magic again.

The next week is most likely going to be filled with speculation of the appointment of a number of faded stars from various parts of the football league or the return of well loved ex-Mariners. Sadly punditry pays more than lower league management and is a good deal more secure. So whereas in the past we might have found a modern Allenby Chilton beating a path to our door I don’t expect anyone like Ryan Giggs or the like to see us as a place to cut their managerial teeth. On the other hand, since Craig Shakespeare shows that ex-Town players can cut it in the coaching stakes, I wouldn’t be surprised to see names such as Wayne Burnett, Paul Groves and Robbie Stockdale touted as possible candidates?

Anyway, I hope the Board recognises the need for informed advice as to who would do a good job for us. Maybe they’ll consider asking Shakespeare to act as an independent assessor when it comes to a selection process?

Whatever is going on, it’s going to be an interesting few days.