Cod Almighty | Diary

I'm putting me money on Shaun

31 January 2022

Miss Guest Diary writes: I confess I felt a little nervous before the match on Saturday, even though Town still have one of the best home records in the division and Wealdstone had won only two games on the road. Should we lose a second time to them I could see the melt down from the Hurst Out Brigade being of sufficient proportions to rip a hole in the space-time continuum. Fortunately, all was well…in the end.

In his pre-match press interview Paul Hurst mentioned taking a scrappy 1-0 or 2-1 victory. That, in the end, was what he got. What should have been a breeze at 2-0 turned into a nervous ending to the match thanks to Danny Amos's defensive error which gifted Wealdstone a goal. Fair play to Danny, though – he's caught the zeitgeist of the club nicely. Not for us the cruise to victory, the crushing defeat over a team who barely had a shot at goal while their keeper played a blinder.

Town have a history of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. I'm sure you can all recall such a game. The one that has lived long in my memory was at Swindon in September 1994. Town were 2-1 up going into the 89th minute but lost 3-2. One of those goals was a penalty awarded after a dive by Jan Aage Fjortoft and I can still conjure up the feelings of rage and impotence which caused me to stand up and shout a profanity in public for the first time in my life.

Random penalties are a fact of life with the officiating at Town's current level so, despite the fact that there seemed little likelihood of Wealdstone breaching Town's defence, there was always the fear of a bad refereeing decision to stop us winning.

Clearly 30 years of watching Town have warped my psyche because I do actually enjoy the narrow victories like Saturday's much more than an easy win. That hypervigilance caused by the need not to take your eyes off the ball followed by the sheer relief when the final whistle is blown is wonderfully cathartic. And the win seems somehow more valuable, and definitely more memorable.

Changing the subject, there are news reports floating around that a fee has been agreed for Siriki Dembele to move from Peterborough to Bournemouth. Our interest in this arises because Town have a sell-on clause which entitles them to 25% of the fee. What that fee will be is anybody's guess – a £4 million "package" has been mentioned, which includes extra payments if Bournemouth get promoted. In any event, I understand that whatever does eventually come Town's way will end up in the pockets of a certain ex-major shareholder and not in the "let's buy a striker fund".

Talking of which, one striker we won't be getting is Omar Bogle who joined Hartlepool last week on a two and a half year deal. He didn't even cost them any money, having left Doncaster by mutual consent. No ambishun Hursts!

The local paper ponders the state of play with Town's new signings, advising that Hurst is still looking for a right-back and a winger on transfer deadline day. Then helpfully reminds us that the deadline for non-league transfers is actually the end of March. Doh!