Cod Almighty | Diary
It's a subtle blend of lateral thinking and extreme violence
14 February 2017
Wicklow Diary writes: Tonight is the return leg of the Cliché Cup quarter-final. A late Omar penalty proved County couldn't do it on a cold Tuesday night in Grimsby. To progress, though, we need to prove we can also do it on a wet Tuesday night in Newport.
County came to BP in September with just one win in 21 games. Their failure to be like Crewe (and Stevenage, and Crawley, etc etc) and use Town's well-known generosity towards such plights meant manager Warren Feeney got Grimsby Reapered. Feeney was replaced by Graham Westley and, on the surface, things aren't much better five months on. County have the crushing weight of 91 clubs sitting on them and have a five-point gap to safety.
They are currently nursing a delicate unbeaten run with four draws and a win in their last five. That was promotion form in the old two points for a win days, but as Town found out in a draw-packed eight-match unbeaten run in spring 1988, absolutely useless in a modern relegation battle. Avoiding defeat is good for morale until you notice you've dropped further behind in the table. Shudder, I shouldn't have revived that 1988 memory – a constant feeling of trying to throw a double six with only one dice.
County haven't given up yet though. A word cloud of the pre-match comment from both sides would be dominated by the words 'war', 'battle', 'fight' and 'pitch'. Although "We've taken ownership of the problem and we're fighting to put it straight" from Westley makes him sound like the gas call centre when I rang up about my billing being wrong for the third month in a row.
No such ambiguity from the Telegraph with "Marcus Bignot is ready to lead his wounded troops into war at Rodney Parade". Not a war of nutrition either, as MB had earlier told Dale on Mariners Player, but a war of attrition. So you know what to expect tonight. Blood and guts and questionable levels of customer service which may or may not involve food. Roll up your sleeves and want it more, you Mighty Mariners.
We know the pitch is a shambles. It must surely have some dry bits down the wings. If only we had some wingers. A bigger shambles is that the ground capacity at Rodney Parade is different for rugby and football. When can we have a grown-up chat about standing at football? Not until after we giggle like stoned twenty-somethings and point out that the Town fans will be housed in the Bisley Stand, named after Tim from Spaced.
Enough about the oppo: what about our soap opera? Marcus's impromptu performance of the The Fishy: Live at the end of the Crewe game has been sliced and diced to death. In his subsequent ruminations he has talked about taking the emotion out of results, good or bad. To paraphrase David Brent, that's the most sensible thing he's said.
As fans, we have natural reactive emotions. Let's not pretend here: if you're reading this, the chances are the Town result makes or breaks your day and those following it. It has done for 37 years for me and I've given up trying to rationalise it. We've got the medium to vent either in person at the game or online afterwards. Time will act as a filter and dampen but when performances like Saturday happen, they hurt. It's hard to detach. As Middle-Aged Diary pointed out, we should be better at this. Some are, some are worse.
The defeats hurt MB too. But his reaction has to be different. For a manager, he must have a long-term plan with an acceptance that there will be blips or whatever. There has to be a process that the manager believes in. Tweaks are allowed, but allowing the whole thing to be derailed over one mishap is not. Especially if we give him lots of stick for the mishap. It may turn out that the MB is not the messiah but a very naughty boy. No-one can call it either way during this period of change.
We have to hope that during the transistion, the expectations of us the fans and progress of the team meet somewhere in between – and the result isn't the mess on Saturday. Take solace in the fact that the last time we visited Newport, it was a genuine must-win game and not one of those cliché must-wins. We didn't win and it took us another couple of seasons to get round the board and pass Go. Tonight isn't that game and we'll probably end up somewhere between 11th and 13th regardless of the result.
Another GTFC are flying. With a skilful Grimsby lad in the centre pulling strings and scoring goals. Harry Clifton is obviously playing below his level at Grantham Town. What's his true level? We'll never know if we don't test him. That's looking unlikely now isn't it? His contract is up in the summer and we might have some dead rubber games to kill between now and then. Never mind.
To complete the housekeeping, the Diary hasn't mentioned that Dan Jones has gone to Fylde on loan (with Sam signing, we have to ensure our Jones Quota doesn't exceed one). Somebody must be designing these upstart teams to troll. "Fleetwood, Crawley, Forest Green riled, but what about a non-League team with backing above their station, managed by... Dave Challinor." It's unlikely but we can hope someone told Jones to give his new manager a good kick in the 'nads from all of us at GTFC.