Cod Almighty | Diary

Farewells and au revoirs

20 November 2018

Andy Dixon, a Town full-back from the late 1980s, Middle-Aged Diary remembers taking an ostentatious objection to. Quite what he had done to upset me, that I could be so categoric in my condemnation, I don't recall. I have an image of him red-faced and puffing as he tried to get back in position after he had been caught out. But I'm pretty sure that was my justification after the fact of deciding it was big and clever to call him the worst player I had ever seen.

Speaking as I find, and acknowledging you probably saw more of him than I did, the one time Paul Dixon made an impression on me, it was a positive one: among the best of a bad lot when we laboured to resemble a football team at Crewe last season. He defended steadily. He got in a decent number of crosses which, if the strikers on that day hadn't developed a profound aversion to getting within two yards of the ball, might have led to attempts on goal.

It wasn't great. It was not enough for me to be typing that letting Dixon go is a mistake. But it is enough to give me no appetite for adding to the list of worst-ever players that is no doubt even longer than the list of worst-ever performances that 30-year season ticket holders seem to witness every time we lose at home.

My impressions of Max Wright are more distinct. He was the player I was really looking out for when Scarborough, for whom he was playing on a season-long loan, visited Trafford last season. That's a couple of leagues below the Conference North, where he will carry on playing with Boston until March. At that level he is a proper player. He can beat his man, when it is right to try, and he can pass. How that will translate when he is playing against – and also with – better players, it will be interesting to find out. We are saying "farewell" to Paul Dixon, but I hope it is only "be seeing you" to Wright.

There's no footy action for us today: even the reserves have been rained off. But stay tuned to Billericay v Chesterfield tonight to find out who we will play next in the FA Cup.

Bye.