Cod Almighty | Diary

The carrot of hope

26 April 2021

Miss Guest Diary writes: Town have done it again, haven't they. Gone and won a game most people expected them to lose. The last time we won at Boundary Park was in February 1997; coincidentally, Town were relegated a couple of months later. But I'm not going to dwell on that. I'm also not going to dwell on the ifs and if onlys involved in possible survival in the League. Suffice it to say that, if Town don't win at Exeter tomorrow, they will be relegated.

Instead I'm going to consider Paul Hurst, as it seems certain that he will be Town's manager next season, whatever division we find ourselves in.

I admit to having mixed feelings when he returned in January but was pleased at the time by his realistic attitude to the job in hand and hopeful that he could mount a rescue operation. Cod Almighty's match reporter predicted that Hurst would not have sufficient time to turn things around and, as usual, he is almost certainly right. We simply haven't won enough games, but what has happened is that the team has become better organised and much harder to beat, as evidenced by Town's record in the last two months: W3 L4 D7.

A Hurst team is never going to play high-scoring swashbuckling football à la Holloway's fantasies every week, but the flipside of that is neither will it be regularly beaten by a high margin. And our promotion season is evidence that, with the right strike partnership, a Hurst team can score a lot of goals. He also has a good eye for a player: McKeown, Disley, John-Lewis, Magnay, Nolan, Amond and Bogle, to name but a few of his successes.

In his first spell with the club I was one of the critics who complained at defeats caused by Hurst's seeming wilful determination to play anything but a 4-4-2 formation. In this spell his flexibility in changing formation to suit the players available and the tactics of the opposition is working much more effectively. My other bugbear was what I referred to as his Mr Snippy personality in the face of any question or comment which might be seen as less than positive – even after a victory. Nowadays he seems much more able to face up to media questions with equanimity, even some humour. Maybe his experiences at other clubs have taught Hurst not to take things so personally.

Twelve years. That's the tenure of the longest-serving Football League manager – Simon Weaver at Harrogate Town. During that time Town have had seven changes of permanent manager, and five spells from various caretakers. Since his appointment in 2009, Weaver has taken Harrogate from the bottom of the Conference North to mid-table in the fourth division. If, in 12 years' time, Paul Hurst was still our manager with a couple of promotions and a few good cup runs under his belt, I would be delighted.

For Weaver, it probably helps that his father is chairman of Harrogate but, in the absence of that, new owners at Town with the stated aim of taking the club "up through the professional divisions and re-establishing GTFC at the heart of the community" is the next best thing. Keep the faith.

UTM