Cod Almighty | Diary

Do you want the bad news now, or do you want to spend 12 hours worrying what it is?

1 November 2023

"We need to talk. No, not on the phone, face to face". When you hear that, from your partner, your doctor or your boss, you know it is unlikely to be good news. Middle-Aged Diary has sometimes wondered at the insistence of people with an axe to let drop that they should leave it, and you, in suspense for a couple of hours rather than put you out of your misery.

No such cruelty from the 1878 Partnership on Saturday evening. When Town lost to Doncaster everyone involved seems to have known that the game was up, and their body language apparently gave it away. In a comprehensive and comprehensible update yesterday, club chair Jason Stockwood explained they had no desire to drag Paul Hurst and Chris Doig away from their families on a Sunday to tell them that they were sacked.

I was one of the people who went on social media that night to accuse them not exactly of a knee-jerk reaction but of providing a rather old school explanation - the need for "a change of luck" - for people who pride themselves on their data literacy. Clearly then was not the time to start picking holes in Hurst's record, and it led me to wonder why the decision could not have been delayed a day, and coupled with a firmer rationale. For the six of you who read my tweet (in my own name, not Cod Almighty's) I acknowledge the board got it right and I got it wrong.

For those of you who have not heard the interview, and are not in a position to play it, the key points are these. The use of the term "head coach" does imply a possible progression to a more collective management structure, but the new person will be in charge both of preparing the first team and of player recruitment and there are no immediate plans for a director of football. The process will take "a few weeks", but 1878 Partnership are confident in Ben Davies and Shaun Pearson, and the support that they are getting, until the appointment is made. And they have the chance to make their case for taking on the role permanently.

Away from that, last night our youth team beat Shrewsbury's 3-0 in the FA Youth Cup. It is hard to contextualise these things but that sounds like a very decent result. Well done to all involved.

Bye.