Cod Almighty | Diary
La Balada de Grasa de Chips Butty
22 November 2023
With the fan forum fast approaching and representatives of our First Team coaching setup promised, it appears Shaun and Ben's other halves will be swapping Friday night cocktails and dancing in Meggies for the pie and peas special in McMenemy's. And it's not for the want of rumoured Head Coaches. It's hard to believe but Steve Morison didn't even make it through Monday and was gone after just one day. Adding in Nathan Rooney, Danny Cowley, and David Healy, that gives GTFC an impressive xHC of 4.0 since Paul Hurst's departure.
This doesn't help an unstable fanbase, one which went from cooing about two wins in four days buying us time to demanding an appointment before, if not during, the half time break at FGR. Which is plainly daft, who ever heard of an owner conducting such important business in the dressing room with the players barely down the tunnel? Regardless, it's a fixture that, thanks to Chris Beeley, we now have a match report for.
Daubney is, at best, apprehensive about the impending appointment. Recent discussions with the extended CA family arrived at the conclusion that Town might follow the example of Lincoln's recent appointment, ie, an under-23 coach from a nearby biggish, but not big, club.
Why the apprehension? Well an appointment like that is going to have data coming out of its ears and every other orifice. And to be frank, the obsession with data is killing football. Or at least sucking the joy from it. At every level. The international break gave us an opportunity to watch England faff about and last night Max Crocombe cramping for New Zealand in Dublin showcased both Kiwi and Irish faffery. When everyone is doing the same thing they just end up cancelling each other out. At club level it then becomes a battle of the wallets, one which Town have never won.
There's a possibility that not only is data out to get football but it did for Paul Hurst as well. A criticism of Hurst is that he was stuck in his ways and couldn't adapt. Well, do you recall Town playing out from the back in his first spell? Never happened. Instead he got grief for the tactic of Macca McKeown launching it to Andy Monkhouse's bonce. Whilst not perfect in isolation, which evil spreadsheet between now and then suggested that it is better to pad your possession stats rather than get the ball in the other half and make the opposition's division four footballers defend like division four footballers?
To throw a curveball out there and upset us all, I'm going to mention Steve Evans. Do you remember how we laughed when Stevenage appointed him in March 2022? I can jog your memory, they were 22nd in division four and looking good candidates to swap league places with Town. How sweet that would have been. Unfortunately, Steve didn't read the script and today, 18 months later, Stevenage are pushing for promotion to the division two chosen land. That is a Buckleyian revival. We'd resurrect the fishing industry just so we could name a trawler after someone who could do that in this day and age. Now, can you picture Steve fiddling about with spreadsheets and clipboards?
Stockwood, Pettit, and Cook are smart. They've got their football experts in. If data has all the answers, let's hope they've asked the right questions and are not going to try to be just like everyone else.