The Diary

Cod Almighty | Diary

Now That's What I Call Football 1990

29 September 2017

Wicklow Diary writes: Russell Slade's finest hour. Tuesday, 20 September 2005 at around 10pm and GTFC have just defeated Tottenham Hotspur(s). Town fans pogoed and players chucked orange. I was in the worst place for such moments of jubilation, the front room watching it on the telly. Seeing but not being.

I was rejoicing but I have a confession. I'd spent large parts of the game huffing and puffing at the huffing and puffing. More balanced heads than mine in the room pointed to the stars on the full-strength Spurs team. Thwacking the ball as far away from your own goal at every opportunity was not just a good tactic, it was the only tactic. I wasn't having it.

I sat on the couch babbling, struck with Buckleymatosis. Sweaty, feverish, disjointed. "Woodsy's done it, Macca's on the overlap, Rees might get there, he does do, one over the eye for Tillson, give it Cockers, I'm not taking this coat off, chance on, goal on". With only a tye-dye pink Ciba Geigy Town shirt to mop my brow and cheap lager as my medicine, Buckleymatosis hit me like one of those 90s drug flashbacks. A mighty skyscraping buzz at the time but the impact on your senses and synapses can distort your reality for years into the future.

A stock phrase of Tony Gubba, Brian Glanville and every hack in between echoed in my head. I remembered it because I heard it, win, lose or draw every time Buckley's Town played a top flight side. "You'd be forgiven for thinking that Grimsby are the first division team". Buckley lived for those games. Some complex corner of his mind that, in equal measures, resented and relished being the underdog. A chance to stick it to the game that he'd never quite reached the peak of as a player.

Against Spurs in 2005, there was no mistaking us for the Premier Leaguers. Yet we won. We had the ideal control subject: the tie against Spurs in the same competition in 1991. Buckley's heroes played them off the park in spells and got stuffed 3-0 for their trouble.

Is it this affected mindset that still makes me greedy, not just for success, but some type of unattainable perfection? Is this what Slade was up against then and now? Tuesday night's draw wrecked my head. Town playing rubbish is hardly news, so what is the problem? Personally, I could take poor football if there was a curve, that despite blips would trend upwards over time. With Hurst and in Bignot's brief spell, I thought this would be the case. My concern with Slade is that I fear the curve to be more a flatline.

We've seen that this division is nothing to fear and with Slade we can still be successful. Slade frequently refers to sometimes having to "win ugly". I'm tempted to say that that's the only way he knows but that would be unfair. And besides it doesn't take much to forget the ugly. Jamey Osborne's goal against Yeovil, Dembele's run and Jones's finish on the opening day, James Berrett's classy goal after a sexy long pass from Scott Vernon at Cheltenham. These are the things that makes people forget how much the ticket cost. That stick in your mind for days and months, sometimes years afterwards.

Tomorrow's derby with Lincoln probably won't be one for the purist. Derbies are always good for a bit of high energy pinball and Charles Lumley's mate might have more to say if he's watching tomorrow.

I hope the league have noted it's a derby and appointed a sensible refer....crikey, it's Boyeson. Anyone for seven-a-side? 

Chris Clements won't be fighting over the XBox controls tomorrow. He's been loaned to Barrow for three months. I don't think he's the messiah that some fans have made him out to be but getting rid is a strange, strange move. Who'd have thunk it? Two managers and seventy-five signings on and Hursty's York rejects Berrett and Summerfield are still our central midfield. Mitch Rose might have something to say about that tomorrow actually. 

For Lincoln, be sure to do your homework by reading Tony Butcher's Rough Guide. Imps fan Ken Wilson did and enjoyed it enough to get in touch. Thanks Ken!

Just emailing to say how much I enjoyed this even though I'm a City fan. A lovely amble through history and lot of truth about the club history. I think the Cowleys may stay a little longer though and it was Oldham we beat in the fog. Ipswich was in the dark.

A key figure in those Ipswich and Oldham wins was Nathan Arnold. Nath has been out of the City side with injury but is fit again and, according to Danny Cowley yesterday, raring to play. Another note of interest from that interview was Cowley's almost embarassed revelation that he used the exact same tactics for Braintree's play-off win at BP as in the league encounter the previous month. I must remember that the next time I present Paul Hurst as a master tactician. It's not just black and white this football, it's every colour in between. Game of opinions? Fair enough but if you get too entrenched you might look as silly as I did on that couch.