Cod Almighty | Diary

Grey is not the colour

6 August 2018

Open Diary writes: When I read Wicklow Diary's piece on Friday I felt the sense of optimism and expectation carried over from the end of last season, when it seemed that footballing sense had triumphed over dogmatic intransigence. In our last real match (you can tell I don't count pre-season matches as real ones) we had dispatched the same team 3-0 at their place, so a result looked on the cards on day one of the new campaign.

I had looked forward to writing this diary, expecting that it would be an opportunity to be upbeat alongside an expected purring report from Popmeister Butcher. Surely it was going to be a walk in the Itchycoo Park? Well, after Saturday we won't be fooled again 'cos it seemed like the new song was a lot like the old one. Shipping four against Clee Town should have been a warning as a second-half horror show brought us down to earth with a bump.

Looking back, it should have been obvious that grey, and especially dark grey, is a kind of omen for a doomed side. For those who don't remember, Manchester United flirted with a dark grey third shirt over 20 years ago, and immediately ditched it at half time when they found themselves 3-0 down at Southampton. The reason – evidently the players claimed they were unable to see team-mates in the bright April sunshine. Which was just what it has been like on a daily basis this summer.

Then England did the same at Euro 1996 only to come to grief in the semi-final against Germany. This was the kit Gareth Southgate was wearing when he missed a fateful penalty. Wearing grey has always led to doom on a football pitch.

It's not clear where the idea of such a goalkeeper kit came from this year and only the players can say how it affected them on the day, but if either or both of them say it played a part in what went wrong, then maybe traditional goalkeeper fluorescence is the way to go.

Earlier this year I saw a review of Lev Yashin, the legendary Russian goalkeeper and his career. He always wore very dark kits, hence his nickname 'the Black Spider', although allegedly it was dark navy blue rather than black. His theory was that it made him less visible to opposing forwards, but in those far-off days of non-stop attack, presumably nobody considered the impact on back-passing defenders.

In the old days, and these were the real old days, English goalkeepers were limited to red, blue and green, but local trawling traditions meant that Grimsby goalkeepers never wore green. Let's hope that Errea hasn't lined up a shade of green as McKeown's alternative outfit for this year.

So let's be honest about it: this wasn't the start to the season we either wanted or expected. But new arrivals are expected in the coming week.

And things often take an unexpected turn. So much so that following various former players' emergence at Shrewsbury last year it appears that Ipswich are offloading Martyn Waghorn for £5million so that they can afford Jon Nolan, Toto Nsiala and Omar Bogle. Evidently Kayden Jackson is out of their reach at £1.5million. Can you believe it? But apart from Nolan, whose talent was obvious from his first game away to Bromley, all the others had numerous detractors and off days when they were here.

Let's keep the faith and see how things play out when the full squad is together and the plan that seems to have been forgotten about is more in evidence. Just make it sooner rather than later.