Cod Almighty | Diary

Happy new year

2 January 2020

Happy new year.

When all is said and done, it is just two teams of 11 people kicking a bag of wind about. Obviously there is more to it than that - just as music is more than people blowing, plucking, scraping and banging - or else we would none of us be here. But the game itself should be at the centre of our thoughts. So among the many things that have happened since the last diary, let's give pride of place to the fact that Town, for the first time since September, have won a football match.

Middle-Aged Diary wasn't there, but I get the impression it came out of nothing. Ex-interim manager - now assistant manager - Anthony Limbrick himself has said it was if anything a worse performance than several recent ones, but it was a win. And you would need a heart of stone not to be delighted that Ahkeem Rose - a young man whose difficulties in North East LIncolnshire never seem to end - got the only goal. His gallop to share his celebration with Dave Moore spoke volumes.

Yet another of Town's long winless runs has been cut relatively short at 14 games. Through the last three months, players and coaches have had their performances dissected but in all the bytes sent out onto social media, the jaded old phrases about players "stealing a wage" and not being prepared "to put in a shift" have been refreshingly absent. Whatever their limitations, the players and Limbrick have earned whatever luck shined on them yesterday.

And so to the latest circling of the managerial merry-go-round. New man Ian Holloway is making love to the fans as passionately as Marcus Bignot, and popping up in as many places as Michael Jolley did in his golden summer. John Fenty, meanwhile, hasn't sounded so enthused about a new manager since Russell Slade tickled him pink. He has even awarded Holloway an 18-month contract: something he has always previously dismissed as quite unnnecessary, a six-month rolling contract being no hindrance to getting the best person for the job.

Fenty, it must be said, has been at quite his worst behaviour. Again. The friend-of-the-stars "Anyone who knows Ian knows" is toe-curlingly awful enough. Far worse is his assault on truth. Previous stadium moves have fallen down not because of politics but because the proposals did not stack up commercially, and were further hindered by Fenty's refusal to work with stakeholders. It really will not do to dress up as his big plans the ideas which others were developing months and years  ago, and which he at the time dismissed as unrealistic.

But I have no desire to be like the fan who ruined a rare moment of joy in the awful year of 1988. The one who, after Scott McGarvey had given a brief display of his talent to conjure up a late winner, told him he was still "a fucking wanker" and found the Glaswegian clambering over the hoardings to get at him.

Holloway is not Bignot or Slade or Jolley. He has 950 games as a manager behind him, and that must mean something. Yesterday, it meant about 1,000 people on the gate. I fancy there is some substance behind the rent-a-quote persona and if his strength is motivation, that is perhaps just what we need - well that and an authentic full back. He doesn't solve the big problems we have as a club, but perhaps he can give us some encouragement to solve them ourselves.

It could go wrong. But I am still too much the comic-reading kid who fell in love with the game not to believe in miracles. In April 2020 or 2021 we could be wringing our hands and wanting to wring necks. Today, let's ring bells.