Cod Almighty | Diary

Friday the 13th and managers are losing their heads

13 January 2017

There aren’t many things that unite the three professional Lincolnshire football clubs, but in Graham Taylor we may have found one.

A Scunny fan as a boy - son of the Scunthorpe Telegraph's 'Poacher' who reported on the Iron for the paper - Taylor was first an apprentice with Scunny before moving to Town. He went on to play 215 times for the Mariners at left back and occasionally in midfield, living during that time in Hainton Avenue. He signed for Lincoln as player-coach, until injury ended his playing career in 1972.

As a manager, his teams amassed an amazing 70+ points (when there were only two points for a win) not once but twice: with Lincoln, where George Kerr was his assistant; and Watford. Wherever he went throughout his career, Taylor retained a great affection for this region and its football clubs, without showing favour to one or the other. For all his many successes, that he should be most remembered for his inability to succeed in the world’s most impossible job, and a documentary that spawned the phrase "Do I not like that", says so much about the unfairness of life.

He was a Town captain, and an ambassador for our corner of the planet wherever he went. We pay tribute to him after his sad death yesterday. Cod Almighty will put together a page of your memories about Taylor, whether as Town player, opposing manager or just as a man, so send them in.

I haven't got enough life left to spend that precious time worrying about where people choose to eat chicken.

Back in division four it’s Friday 13th, and transfer shenanigans proceed apace. Behind the scenes, players and clubs try to thrash out arrangements they can all live with, and - by the sounds of it where we’re concerned - mostly fail.

One thing you know by now is that your faithful Retro Diary doesn't get all that excited about transfer speculation. Actual transfers, yes. I’ll cheer them in and boo them out all day long. But please don’t tell me about the brinkmanship, bluffing, stupid reporting and tantrums, or who's just been seen coming out of Nando’s in Wigan. I'm not bothered. All that tells me is that somebody's been to Wigan for the day. I haven't got enough life left to spend that precious time worrying about where people choose to eat chicken.

The little dynamics created with respect to Solihull Moors and Gateshead are interesting only if we have to play them. But until we do, basically just let me know when the players have signed.

Of the three actual new recruits so far, we’ve only seen one of them - Adi Yussuf - in action, and that little piece of business seems to be turning out OK.

Gavin Gunning hasn't played yet, but has given an introductory interview in which he sounded like the bunny without the Duracell. Sometimes he wound down so far you weren't sure if his sentences were actually finished or had just become inaudible. If he’d answered "whatever" to every question, we’d have learned just as much. The result is that I'm now expecting a fantastically laid back sort of centre half. In a good way – a Futch way - not a pick the ball up way.

Young Ahkeem Rose played in the youth victory over Rotherham and apparently did well. There's been no talk of him getting near the first team, but I don’t know why. We're paying him now, and you know what they say: if you're good enough you're old enough. All we know about him is that he came from the evocatively-named Heather St John's (Heather is a village in Leicestershire, not one of the players' mums), and we've seen his goals for the youth team against Hartlepool and York City youth on the clips.

What nobody has explained to me - and I'm sure there must be a reason - is why, when he scored that winner against Hartlepool, everybody ran right past him and ignored him completely. It was all a bit odd, and didn't look great. I'd need to know the teenage politics behind it before I pass comment. Anyone? Give it a look and see what you think.

Poor Rhys Browne has been on compassionate leave lately, and in the end the consensus was that he should be let out on loan somewhere nearer to his family in London. So he’s signed for Macclesfield. That worked out well then.

Brandon Comley's loan future can't be decided until QPR's manager since November, Ian Holloway, has seen him play. He came on with one minute to go last night in Rangers' win at Reading, looking "shocked" according to his manager. Can we have him back now?

It was an extremely satisfying victory for Town against the Pools last Saturday, and Marcus Bignot continues to delight with his little post-match 'isms'. He seems to have replaced wandering slowly out of shot with slowly turning round so we're looking at the back of his head. As far as actual content goes, last week I rather liked "it’s a controllable I can’t control" (then it's not a controllable, Marcus). But having uttered, whether by accident or not, "sometimes you’ve got to go with an ugly one, don't you", he should at least have had the self-awareness to look contrite, if indeed a straight face was asking too much.

In an interview later in the week he promised that if better offers go in for his Solihull and Gateshead targets, he'd drive them to their new clubs himself. Go on, Marcus, we’d love to see you actually do that. His interviews are fast becoming one of the most entertaining parts of a matchday. Luckily, his flattery about Town's fans always seem to make everything OK. "This support is a joke" he says, with effortless mischievousness.

Elsewhere, January comings and goings have included Parslow to York and Brodie to Boston. Managers have been biting the dust with regularity too. Sorry old Notts County have offloaded yet another gaffer before his desk even saw a duster. There’s Mike Phelan across the bridge, obviously; Steve Davis has gone from Crewe, as has Danny Wilson from Chesterfield, Stephen Robinson from Oldham and Rob Page from Northampton. Page's final misdemeanour, his last straw, was another piece of misogyny for today's list, declaring the Cobblers' 5-0 defeat to Bristol Rovers as "men against girls".

Our old friend Justin Edinburgh has been given the boot by Gillingham. Oh how sad. I still can't forgive Edinburgh for calling us cheats on national television that time, when we quite reasonably asked the ref if he might call off our fog-bound game with Rushden and Diamonds, which Diamonds happened to be winning 2-0 at the time. The notion that Edinburgh may have been equally a cheat for similarly encouraging the ref to play on despite nobody being able to see a frickin' thing, was an irony apparently lost on him.

Tomorrow it's Exeter. The ref is Ben Toner, who gave us the winning 88th minute penalty against Newport back in September. Exeter are a team we always seem to beat when it matters – so where that leaves us tomorrow is an interesting question. Last week I was quietly confident we'd beat Hartlepool, but football's natural rhythms don’t give much away on this one. "It will be a tactical game" says Marcus. Well phew I’m glad we've cleared that up. For us, Sean McAllister and Luke Summerfield are back in contention. Apart from that, who knows – January these days is just one great big adventure.
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