Cod Almighty | Diary

David Bowie, Siouxsie Sioux, we sure gave your boys one hell of a beating

24 September 2024

Last Saturday we endured an ugly ducking of a win. A man down, the action bobbling about our penalty box as players threw themselves at high balls aimed to the heads of taller opponents, finally the full time whistle blew and we could punch the air in triumph and relief.

As Dave Artell acknowledged, in most respects we had played better in our defeats by Barrow and Chesterfield. Newbegin Diary felt the poverty of the creative play all the more keenly as I was there with members of my family, watching Town variously for the first time this year, the first time since 1980 and the first time ever. It's the worst game I've seen this season, I told them.

And yet, if we'd played the same way with the same outcome at Bromley, the performance would have gleamed like a beautiful swan, something to enrich the long journey home, and to gloat about for days. "It couldn't have happened to a nicer team" we'd say, reflecting on Bromley's robotic approach while dwelling at length on Town's resolve.

Sometimes we should be kinder, both to ourselves and to our own team. Jeers erupted when a defender took the conservative option of a pass back or to the side last Saturday, but if no one was showing for the forward ball it was perhaps because they had worked themselves almost to a standstill. And there were only cheers and chants at the end when we were clinging by less than the width of a crossbar to the win. The players were running on nothing but our fumes, but they were still running.

Our next two games are at Carlisle and Gillingham. Many of us will be sitting at home, our phones in our pockets, not expecting to be entertained but in a perpetual state of pre-score alert tension. Come away with points and it'll be because we showed the same qualities which overcame Bromley, and there'll be no qualification to our enjoyment of the results.