Cod Almighty | Diary

Learning

17 October 2018

Yesterday afternoon, academy manager Neil Woods took a youthful Grimsby reserves team to Mansfield: some of the players were 16 or 17 years old and not one had appeared in a league game. Under those circumstances, a 1-0 defeat against a more experienced side is a creditable performance.

We have not heard a lot about the Youth Development Association since its launch in February. But that is not to say that good work is not being done behind the scenes. A cursory glance at the Grimsby Town Academy site shows that the under-18 team is unbeaten in its league so far this season.

Results don't tell the whole story though. You don't read calls on social media for the academy manager's head when a youth or reserve team loses. Few are better placed than Woods to understand the differences in how performances and results are judged compared with the first team. It allows for a more relaxed, more analytical, post-match interview [audio link, requiring iFollow sign-in], and all the more interesting for that.

Invited to say he was "proud" of his young charges, Woods chooses his words with a care that suggests he has a future writing for Cod Almighty should he want it. "Proud is a big word. I'm pleased with them, and for them." He goes on to describe, positively but without glossing over the challenges they face, how his players need to develop to have a future in the game.

Woods says that every week he is getting seven or eight players performing well: "When they are not playing well, the level they drop to is too low... If you can come in a six or seven out of ten every Saturday, when we know they have got the eights or nines in them, then they obviously give themselves a chance."

It is potentially educational then that the Telegraph has given the players in yesterday's defeat marks out of ten. Except that they follow the Telegraph habit of awarding everyone who plays the full 90 minutes a score of six or seven: slightly lower in a defeat, higher for a win. Twitter users will have seen the recent exchanges between current and ex-Telegraph reporters who let the cat out of the bag on the value of these scores. To be fair, everyone had been listening to the miaows coming out of their sacks for decades.

Your Middle-Aged Diary sounds catty, doesn't he? Even more when I insist that Tony Butcher's referee ratings are always based on careful scientific observation.

Bye.