Cod Almighty | Diary
We love being with you as well
13 December 2016
Wicklow Diary writes: The gaffer continued his courtship of the GTFC faithful with Marcus Monday at the club shop yesterday afternoon. With a little help from Micky Moore and Omar Bogle, Marcus signed, posed and beamed through queues of fans in the club shop.
Marcus has told us he feels like he's falling in love. Woah there, steady them horses. Don't break relationship rule number one. No, not the one about leaving toast bits in the butter. The 'I love you' one. You'll make us uncomfortable if we're not ready to reply in kind. Worse, we might run a mile. Mate, we've had some difficult relationships and we don't just dash down to Moss Bros or Ernest Jones at the first sight of an overlapping full-back racing on to a red-stockinged back-heel.
Many of us Town fans are insecure, vulnerable and over-sensitive. The remainder will be by the time they are out of nappies. We're just coming out of a complicated relationship. We want to believe but some of your words are so perfect, it's almost like you've read our anonymous letters to Dear Claire. The ones where we opened up about the partner who put food on us table but always seemed distant and lacking in passion. He disappeared one night without even saying goodbye, you know. Left us to survive and somehow provide for the shoeless midfielders that he so charitably rescued from the Bootham Crescent poorhouse.
I'd be less touchy if the results were forthcoming. To this end, we can afford to be patient, and that's what I'm going to be. Great players will probably make any old duff formation work and make a manager look goodish in short order. Pep Guardiola is the walking, grossly overpaid example of this. On the other hand, fourth division players will probably struggle at first to make a new formation work. To me, Saturday looked like that struggle, coupled with good opposition who never gave us a second on the ball.
Yesterday's diary touched on the apparent random nature of footy management. Watching Marcus in the technical area on Saturday, I contemplated how much impact his touchline promptings had, compared to his predecessor's less animated approach.
Another ex-Town boss, John Newman, tells a story about a more famous Pompey game in 1979 which was featured on Match of The Day. He liked to watch from the stands and on this occasion was sat high up in the stand with the directors. Town were 2-1 up but under the cosh. Newman wanted to get a message to the team and made the long trip down to the touchline.
By the time he reached the dugout, he'd forgotten what the actual message was. George Kerr, his coach, looked at him like he was mad. Newman made the trek back up to the stand and as he sat down, Tony Ford made it 3-1. The nearest cheering director leaned in: "By crikey, John, whatever you said certainly put a fire under them!"
Regardless of the benefits of touchline instruction, I overheard a couple more nuggets for my Main Stand phrasebook on Saturday. From Marcus' touchline actions you could see that "he wears his heart on his mouth" and Luke Summerfield’s rage-inducingly rubbish free kick from the edge of the area on 81 minutes "brought a lead balloon to the party".
Watching from the Main on Saturday was extra special having heard Andy Freeman's beautiful recital of his The Main Stand: Town's living history article at Can You Hear the Grimsby Sing? the previous evening. Well done again to the Trust and the Cod Almighty editorial team for organising the event. Jackie Bestall featured in a number of the pieces and embodied the magical legacy that a player can leave at a club, even among those who never saw him play. Andy has been in touch to share a picture of a young Jackie.
In other news, Omar's still being linked with every team in the league. So actually no news there then. The youth team have taken Ahkeem Rose Heather on trial from Midlands League side St Johns and signed Ty-Rhys Paul Jones, a wide player who was at Walsall's academy. Both a result of Neil Woods' return from the Midlands, no doubt. The official site's story on the signings also gave us a fine first example of Woodseses' impossible plurals since his return.
