Cod Almighty | Diary

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results

14 August 2017

Miss Guest Diary writes: When I flounced out of the diary room at Cod Almighty Towers six months ago, little did I dream how soon I would be back or how much would have changed in the meantime. Manager: gone; star striker: gone; captain: gone.

So what have we now? Good old Russ back in the manager's seat after 10 years drifting around the lower leagues and good old Scotty Vernon leading the line – when he doesn't crock himself in the pre-match warm-up. I struggled to see anyone wearing the captain's armband on Saturday and a trip to Wikipedia was needed for me to gather that Town's captain is Nathan Clarke. Well I hope he gave himself a good talking to after Saturday's gaffe against Coventry.

I say gaffe, but in my mind Coventry's first goal was nothing short of cheating. There's no way McNulty didn't realise that Clarke hadn't taken the free kick and was just rolling the ball back to McKeown. But I shouldn't have been surprised when he took advantage of the situation. We now live in a world where cricketers, rather than walking, defy the umpire's decision and wait to be proved out by technology, and pundits on football shows think that players are "entitled to go down" to win a penalty. All the blame I have seen for Saturday's controversial goal being allowed to stand has been heaped on the referee. I agree he was wrong but if the ball hadn't been put in the net in the first place, there wouldn't have been a decision for him to get wrong.

On Saturday, I was reminded of that Arsenal FA Cup game from years ago when Kanu and Overmars combined to score a goal unfairly against Sheffield United after the ball had been put out of play for an injury. In my mind, Arsenal evened things up by letting Sheffield score, but when I looked it up I discovered that the game was actually replayed. The first time, and almost certainly the last I’m sure, that this has happened in the interests of sportsmanship and fair play.

Perhaps we could start a campaign to have Town's game replayed...on second thoughts, I have no desire to sit through another 90 minutes of two defensive teams playing not very attractive football. Let Coventry have the points. It's not as if we're likely to be challenging for promotion this season with Russ seemingly intent on playing with a lone striker.

It's no secret that I wasn't a big fan of Russ's playing style in his first go round as Town manager. I was only on diary duty very occasionally in those days, but I did manage to find an entry from that era where I complained about the prospect of "a new 4-3-2-1 formation with Andy Parkinson as the lynchpin of Town's hopes". Plus ca change...

The only commendable thing about Saturday was the rousing minute's applause from both sets of fans to celebrate the life of recently deceased Town fan, Peter Nicholls. Condolences to his family and friends.

It feels a little ironic that I turned my back on diary duties in disgust after the dismal experience of seeing Town lose at Stevenage in January only to find that, upon my return, Town's next game is away at Stevenage. Will I be there? Of course I will. I may not always want to write about the ups and downs of supporting Town, but that doesn't stop me from living them. See you in Hertfordshire.