Cod Almighty | Diary

No news is just no news

19 June 2020

There's no Town news that Middle-Aged Diary feels needs comment. By all means find something better to do with your next few minutes.

Was there ever a relegation season that contained within it so many treasurable moments as 1996-97? You have the measure of it that Clive Mendonca scored 19 goals that campaign.

Two of them were at Charlton, when John Oster was making his debut. Stretch my memories and I dare say I'd remember details that could be used in evidence, but its images that surface. All three of our goals at Charlton were, I remember, brilliant, but I can't tell you any more about any of them: it's only because I've looked it up I know Steve Livingstone scored the other. Oster flashed the ball around the pitch, the effect somewhere between boy-wizard and the young Brian Lara, who used himself to wield his bat as though it was a magician's wand, and he was still excited at his own powers. Precisely what Oster did that evening that was so wonderful I can't describe, but I do know he was wonderful.

Another disconnected image I have is of Darren Wrack scoring his one and only goal for his home-town team. Wrack is in my mind because I have been reading about his grandfather, Charles Wrack, Town's centre half when Town won promotion to Division One in 1929. Centre half was a midfield position then, but even so Wrack senior, with his "gliding passes", must have been a little like Paul Futcher to watch in action. Charles's son-in-law, Darren's uncle, Ken Chapman played for Town as an amateur in 1969.

So isolated is the memory of Darren Wrack's goal from its context that I thought it had belonged to a game we were sort of discussing a few months back, the one against Swindon that was abandoned when we were one goal and one man down. In the rearranged game, we went 2-0 up, then 3-2 down and finally drew 3-3. Our last, I think, was a Mendonca header, and I believe he set up our first, waiting his moment to release the ball so that Tony Gallimore had the simplest of finishes. But that could have been Michael Appleton's goal. It certainly wasn't Wrack's.

His goal was at Reading's old Elm Park, and I can no longer tell you if was the equaliser or the opener in a 1-1 draw. One thing has stayed with me. The only thing worth remembering is not the draw, nor that Wrack finally had to go to Walsall to make it as a player, nor even the fact the season did end in relegation. It is the look of pure delight on Darren Wrack's face when he scored.

Have a good weekend.