Cod Almighty | Diary

I've got a habit

15 February 2017

For a couple of reasons your original/regular Diary was not originally (or regularly) going to bother listening to the GTFC manager's post-match interview today. One reason was that I'm feeling kind of detached from the team just now. Not the club, of course – that doesn't really change – but the team. The large collection of mutual strangers mostly assembled in a hurry two or three weeks ago. I've got no idea who most of them are. And, as Smiley Marcus and the non-chairman have explained, they've all arrived in mid-season instead of the summer – thus turning the rest of the current campaign into a sort of pre-season warm-up for 2017–18.

I don't suppose that was the non-chairman's thinking. More likely he has just got a bit overexcited with the Bogle money and decided to sling a few bob at an unlikely late bid for the top 7. Marcus, yes, OK – he's said it's the plan. But John Fenty has previous for the ill-fated mid-season splurge. To me this all feels a bit too much like January 2006. Except in that instance Town were already top of the league and the enforced shake-up of the squad derailed a very good chance of promotion. There's no way we'll go on this time to lose our manager a few months later, descend into chaos, and ultimately crash out of the Football League for a prolonged period in the Conference. IS THERE.

The other reason for shunning MB's chat with BBC Radio Humberside was that I never go out of my way to listen to post-match, or indeed pre-match, interviews at the best of times, because they're just so bloody dull.

Alright, so just occasionally you'll get Kevin Keegan saying he'd love it if we beat them, love it (although even then it wasn't so much what he said as the way he said it). But compelling interviews with managers come round with about the same frequency as Halley's comet, or the Labour party getting its shit together. There are many more interesting ways to spend your time. Changing nappies. Scraping mould from the edge of the bath tiles. You get the idea.

On the advice of my esteemed colleague Devon Diary, however, I have just given Marcus's interview a listen while eating some Quorn and cauliflower korma left over from last night. The listening to Marcus's interview bit was Devon's advice, I mean, not the Quorn and cauliflower korma bit. Devon's more of a lamb vindaloo man.

So, what did I hear? I heard a man who was relieved as hell that his team hadn't reprised their Gresty Road debacle and shipped another five goals to a struggling opponent. I heard a man whose twinkly charm was barely distinguishable from evasiveness when asked about the future of Craig Disley and the immediate past of James McKeown. I heard a man who knew he'd accidentally cast aspersions on the technique of the starting XI he'd just fielded when he said "we left all our footballers out tonight", and immediately gave a nervous chuckle to indicate that he didn't mean it in a bad way.

Best of all, though, I heard a man who said Sam Jones was "like a staniard". While not quite in the "war of nutrition" class, this newest bignotism invites a sequence of fun speculation.

Perhaps Marcus meant Jones is like a Spaniard, comparing his majestic command of the midfield with that of, say, Xavi, Iniesta or David Silva. Or like a standard – not the bog variety, but a flag carried proudly through battle, an emblem of his comrades' chest-beating fortitude. Along similar lines, perhaps the word intended was stallion, the magnificent beast used to embody masculine prowess. It may be that, though, Marcus was comparing Jones to a spaniel, a domesticated canine originally used to retrieve water fowl shot down with arrows. We can only hope and pray that the intention was not another deplorable snipe at Craig Disley by likening Jones to a Stannah stairlift – good for getting up and down and carrying an old person.

At times during this interview I shifted awkwardly in my seat – as I'm sure Marcus would also have done, had he been sitting down. I hope he'll turn out to be a good manager for GTFC because I like him. I don't know whether he will, and nor do you. But he's a nice man. I like him very much.

Listen – if you're one of the many Town fans who vigorously berated our only two successful managers since 1980 for "lacking PR skills", you've got exactly what you wanted in Bignot. As, indeed, you did in a certain Mr L Lawrence – another gift-of-the-gab manager who took over the hotseat from one who actually won things. Let's hope – for our happiness and your self-esteem – that Marcus's record of achievement turns out a bit more Buckley and a bit less Lennie.