Cod Almighty | Diary

Is this the life?

6 January 2021

I've just looked at the league table. Why did I do that?

Hello. BOTB diary here. For my last two Wednesday submissions I've been clinging onto a crouton in a boiling pan of news soup, as managers resigned, tyrants fell and sausage magnates started magnating all over the place. So far today has been a bit quieter, although I daresay that two minutes after I submit my diary Luke Waterfall will be announced vaccinations czar or Matt Green will explode, rendering my diary obsolete before it hits the presses.

There is of course a reason I chose Waterfall and Green; they are actual Town players and not Revolving-door Ronnies, whose status is liable to change hourly. For example Virgil Gomis has gone back to Nottingham Forest and Owen Windsor has gone back to his royal duties, starting with opening a community drop-in centre in Newport. Did Gomis play for us? I have no recollection. Windsor scored a good goal didn't he? For a second he produced a spark of hope in the GTFC breast, so I'm grateful to him for that.

Elsewhere, young Siriki Dembele is a wanted man, with money-laden clubs brawling for his signature. This is good news for us, of course, as the sell-on clause will be activated, hopefully leading to a big pile of wonga winging its way to us. He was clearly a talented footballer when he played for us, at least when he had the ball. When he didn't his tendency was to stand on one spot and wait for the pinball randomness of the match to deposit the ball at his feet. Someone here could have improved that aspect of his game, although I suspect at our level the coaching whiteboard is mainly used to draw knobs on. Anyway, someone has clearly developed him as a player, so good luck to him.

Apart from that it's basically wishful thinking, rumours and backfence prittle-prattle, usually involving Omar Bogle. My fear is that it will be too little too late, but having been put under house arrest for six weeks I'm not really heavily into optimism at the moment. Optimism is so 2019. Still, we have a sensible-ish manager and a board who haven't done anything embarrassing yet, so, hey-ho, you never know.

And on that inspirational rallying cry, I take my leave. Keep a close eye on Matt Green though.