Cod Almighty | Diary
Bignot strikes again
17 January 2017
Wicklow Diary writes: There's more transfer rumour gubbins out there if you want to look for it. I'm not going to add to the speculation – but to get it going, it's clear that this window needs more 'come and get me' pleas from 'want-away' players. Only then can the real swooping begin.
Marcus's post-match chat with John Tondeur is another subject that has filled the internet pipes. I was less concerned about the perceived sniping – who isn't a bit tetchy after a defeat like that to another team in a luminous highlighter pen kit? I was slightly more concerned about the content.
"There's a complete difference in this league to the level that this club has just come from. Complete difference – technically and physically. That's our Achilles heel and we're trying to address it."
This is confusing and slightly worrying. Hursty already swept out what he deemed to be division four-and-a-half players. In Marcus's eyes did he just sign more? On chunky-looking contracts at that. Anyway, isn't Marcus looking to where we've just come from to address the gap between where we are and where we've come from? Flummoxing.
Every successful manager we've had assembled the parts to be greater than the whole. With a system or pattern that the players become familiar and comfortable with. We are obviously not there yet. Don't listen to me – listen to the master. Alan Buckley commented on it at the weekend. In fact the best thing to come out of listening to the game for me was hearing that AB had spoken with MB.
Buckley the pundit is not like David Attenborough filming in the African plains, impartial and professionally removed as the lioness stalks the cute and vulnerable prey. No, he's going to march in there and tell that damned gazelle to get it down and pass it
Sir Alan the pundit is not like an independent war correspondent or David Attenborough filming in the African plains, impartial and professionally removed as the lioness stalks the cute and vulnerable prey. No, he's going to march in there and tell that damned gazelle to get it down and pass it. And AB has told Marcus he hasn't seen a pattern in Town's play so far. Even when we win. He also inadvertently made the telling comment on Saturday's pattern that "Shaun had a good half, like most of the central defenders".
Yesterday's diary went to the printers before the sad news emerged of Clarrie Williams's passing. His fine career played out before any of the diarists became Blundell Park regulars but Neville Butt shares memories of Clarrie in this lovely 2014 CA article.
Looking at the cold statistics, Clarrie's club record 25 clean sheets during the title-winning 1955-56 season leaps out of the page. This was an era when games routinely finished in 12-all draws, and centre-forwards could pick up the smaller opposition defenders to use as jousting sticks and knock goalkeepers into the net. Indeed, another lovely article on Williams from the Grimsby News blog includes a story from his wife Pat of the toll on a 1950s goalkeeper. "I recall one occasion when he was pretty well dragged to our front door by a couple of colleagues with his trousers covered in blood. I never knew if he would still all be in one piece when he returned home!" The man must have been a marvel.
The Diary doesn't have to do all the work – it's a team game. Apart from plugging Neville's piece, allow me to direct you to Baz Whittleton's lovely writing on Graham Taylor. Also, the letters page has been updated. We are not just here to bellow forth from our ivory high horse-shaped pulpit. Well, we are, but we really love it when we get emails agreeing or disagreeing. Otherwise we think you've left early and not read to the end. See what I did there?
Look, leave games early if you consider there is something better to do, but please slink out with due meekness. I've said it before – as an exile it's easy to say pfft, I'd never leave any of my ten games a season early. However it's the leaving early with seat-slamming drama that irks me. Wearing your angry departure as a proud badge of how shit your team has just been. Like those West Ham wallies who filmed themselves along with their puzzled kids leaving after 50 minutes.
Where were we... yes, the Postbag. There's some great stuff in there. Antony Chapman has a call to arms on the stadium project. Everyone should take note. Look we've appointed an architect that builds retail, residential and leisure centres. They've never built a stadium. You can see already how Extreme view this project. Our priority is a footnote to their design brief. Can you see where this is heading? There's a good chance they'll forget to build the stadium altogether and we'll end up stuck at BP. (Hang on, wouldn't that be OK? Shut it, we're moving, get used to it). Give your input to the Trust or send it to us and we'll pass it on. Antony's feedback should be an excellent trigger for your thoughts.
Let's end with a bit of politics (cue sound of several hundred plastic seats snapping up). Mr MA Butcher's contribution to the Postbag contains an interesting theory: Thatcher, Thatcher, milk snatcher is to blame for the lack of young locals making the first team. Yes, the conveyor belt of strapping lads like the Moore brothers, Wilko, Drinky, and Lund ceased with the end of free school milk. Looking at the recruits from the last few years, he might have a point. If you lined Max Wright, Harry Clifton and Josh Venney side by side, they're about the combined width of one of Tony Ford's thighs. Madness, you say? We haven't blamed Thatcher in at least three diaries, so it's a fact.