Cod Almighty | Diary

Playing and watching through the pain

5 October 2018

Because I’m really good at the internet, right, I did a bit of digging earlier in the week and discovered that, so far this season, we’ve used 25 players. Granted, we’re now living in an age when naming the same starting XI from match to match is as unheard of as squad rotation was back in the mid-1990s, but that total is already just two short of the 27 players Alan Buckley used in the entirety of the legendary 1997-98 season.

Given that three of those 27 players – Matt Bloomer, Ben Chapman and Darren Wrack – made just one appearance each (all as late second half substitutes in our FA Trophy first round victory over Hull City) it makes the achievements of that season even more remarkable. And if you look very carefully – or you’ve got an ace memory – you’ll also find fleeting appearances from Dave Gilbert and Jim Dobbin buried deep in among the mad flurry of mid-season games.

So that takes us down to 22. You can, if you choose, strip out little cameos from Nicky Southall, Jason Pearcey and loan signing Paul Holsgrove, but each of them played enough of a part in the early-to-mid stages of the season to deserve a mention. And beyond the fringe players of Daryl Clare, Graham Rodger, Neil Woods and a couple of appearances from Danny Butterfield, you start to get to the heart of that team.

Davison, McDermott, Gallimore, Lever, Handyside, Groves, Burnett, Dave Smith, Donovan, Lester and Nogan. And let’s not forget the likes of Livingstone and Jobling, while Black and Widdrington were mainstays until the arrival of Burnett and Smith.

Memory becomes selective with time, so I’m not pretending we didn’t suffer injuries in 97-98. But since a core team of 15-16 players carried us through 68 games (and the oft-quoted statistic that Groves played every minute of them), it certainly makes your West Yorkshire Diary wonder why modern-day footballers can barely last 10 games before either picking up a niggling injury or suffering something more serious.

It’s possible, if not very probable, that the Town players from 97-98 played with niggling injuries. Today, in a mid-February match, they’d likely get beaten by opposition that had spent the season resting and rotating their squad. Back then, however, we came up against sides equally knackered and in no position to rest players carrying injuries.

This rest-and-rotate philosophy has emerged in the last couple of decades and today the majority of clubs are doing it. One manager often credited with initiating this so-called tinkering is the Tinker Man himself, Claudio Ranieri. The irony is, of course, that years later Ranieri would win the Premier League title unexpectedly with Leicester City after naming pretty much the same starting XI week after week.

There's still a lot to be said for consistency, but it seems like modern day footballers just can't stand up to the rigours of modern-day football over a sustained period of time. It's surprising, because I don't think the focus on players' fitness has ever been greater, given innovative training techniques and all that scientific data these modern-day strength and conditioning coaches get to use. And it's also a shame, because I believe we, as fans, get to know the players better when we're able to see partnerships develop on the pitch. You think back to any successful team – even the recent promotion-winning squad of 2015-16 – and you immediately remember the core team and the partnerships it was built on.

Right now, I haven't got a fucking clue what our core team is, what our style of play is, or whether we have any partnerships to speak of. I'm not laying the blame totally at Michael Jolley's door because, as we know, we haven't been helped by injuries and suspensions.

But this brings me to a theory I have, which is that there’s a direct correlation between injuries and struggling teams, but it’s not as obvious as you first think.

When a team is struggling, a player’s stock rises among the fans when he doesn’t play. He can do no wrong if he’s sat on the sidelines. Similarly, when a team is playing well, the only way a player’s stock can rise is if he’s playing in that team. So, if you’re a player carrying a niggling injury, but in a successful team, you’d take whatever injection you need to get you through the 90 minutes.

If you’re a player carrying an injury, but the team’s piss poor, well, why risk injections or hurting yourself further? Sit at home or watch from the stands and wait for the fans to artificially inflate your abilities in the wake of some terrible performances from your teammates.

I’m aware this is a particularly cynical theory, and I’m sure many if not all professional footballers would refute these suggestions, but for years now I've wondered why successful sides always seem to avoid suffering a big pile of injuries while struggling sides always seem to cite injuries as a key cause of their problems.

Tomorrow a poor Town side hit by injuries will aim to follow up their excellent win at Carlisle in the week with home win over Port Vale. I can't think of many occasions when it's taken until October for Town to record their first league victory at Blundell Park, but I'm sure fans older (and possibly wiser) than me will have memories of equally disastrous starts.

Port Vale don't feature heavily in my memories. I'm sure we all broadly remember last season’s last-minute equaliser in what was Jolley’s first home game in charge. James Berrett doesn't feature very heavily in my memories either, although that goal was at least something to remember him by.

However, I do remember Town coming from two goals behind to rescue a late draw against Vale back in 1998-99. Clare scored late on and the Valiants' current manager Neil Aspin got sent off in injury time. That was 20 years ago, when both teams were competing in the second division. You didn't hear my sigh of reminiscence there, but it was fairly loud.

Let’s finish on a positive, though. Elliot Embleton, who has impressed in patches in the last couple of games, has been called up to the England under-20 side. It's always refreshing to see young players rewarded for having the balls to leave the comfortable surroundings of their parent club to mix it with the likes of Grimsby. I imagine he's done enough to keep his place in the side for tomorrow – and if there’s anything that can be said for seemingly random player selections then just imagine what a headache it must cause opposition managers and their scouts.

The best part of 3,000 Town fans bought season tickets in the summer under the assumption that the football we played at the end of last season would continue into this. That hasn't happened, but it would be nice if the players could run through some pain barriers to deliver a bit of joy to these committed souls in these darkening autumn days.

UTM!