Cod Almighty | Diary

Blessed are the cheesemakers

10 September 2018

Miss Guest Diary writes: As I was sitting in the car before Saturday's game, eating a sandwich and watching the rain streaming down, I spotted an article in the paper about the opening that day of an exhibition about the life of Victoria Wood. In Bury. With free entry.

I've always been a fan of her work and suggested, only half-jokingly, to my other half that maybe we should go there instead of the game. Had I not already shelled out £20 for a ticket, I might well have followed through on that suggestion, and by 5pm I wished I had.

In the build-up to this season I, and many other fans, had such high hopes of Michael Jolley's abilities as a coach to create a successful team playing attractive football. And maybe he will eventually do that. But the omens are not currently good. One win in eight games and only five goals scored. Red cards and injuries to important players haven't helped to create any consistency, but then neither has the seemingly constant switching of formations.

I was musing about this to a friend on Saturday, pondering why our saviour from last season hasn't been able to recreate the form which saw us lose only one of the last seven games and avoid relegation. His response was "three dodgy penalties". It is true that the seven points we secured from wins against Chesterfield and Swindon and the draw with Barnet did come courtesy of Mitch Rose (pen). And I was there to witness the mysterious disallowing of Swindon's goal which allowed us to win that game.

So have we Jolley fans simply bamboozled ourselves into thinking he's the messiah when he's really just a naughty boy who's out of his depth in the Football League? Certainly the last couple of games have had a whiff of Bignot madness about them.

During his interview on Saturday, Jolley reminded John Tondeur that he has only managed 30 games. In many ways it was brave of the Town board to take a chance on someone with so little experience. A bit like the FA taking a chance on Gareth Southgate as England manager. It seemed to work out quite well in the World Cup, if you ignore the fact that England's victories were against the weaker teams – the equivalent of Town's three dodgy penalties – and that they have now lost three games in a row, just like Town.

Jolley's 30 games as manager equates to about six months' work. Any managers out there: think back to starting your job. Could you say you knew exactly what you were doing and had all the answers during the first six months? I know I couldn't. So I am going to give Jolley the benefit of the doubt and keep supporting both the team and the manager, and urge you to do the same.

What is the alternative? Managers who we know have failed elsewhere, or have less experience than Jolley. Sometimes it's worth waiting for something to grow rather than chopping its head off.

And, let's face it, it could be worse – we could be Notts County fans.