Cod Almighty | Diary

Horizon scanning

18 October 2024

Two weeks from Halloween and the SCAN is back, wielding its virtual scythe. This time it's Luker's hamstring that goes under the reaper's gaze. Normally, by this stage, your A46 Diary would be questioning the training: what are they doing to them down there on Cheapside? Are we running them into the ground, chasing their hamstrings' souls and sending them into the ether? Has anyone oiled the rack or are we stretching them cold, hamstrings spreading out from Cheapside like cheap CGI on the cutting room floor of the The Last of Us bonus features disc?

It might be naive of me, but DA doesn't seem the type. The tyrannical managers are usually more defensive during injury crises, usually quicker to spread the blame, quicker to point fingers at the players themselves. And the tyrannical manager usually has a greater short-term impact while the issues leak out from six to 18 months in the job. We lurch to curses or despotic bosses because we don't like coincidence, it doesn't fit well in our tiny brains. "As if?" is our favourite question! We need reason and logic. We want things explained. We want Google to give us answers, dammit. We want Radio Humberside to interrogate DA to the nth degree until he admits that he's whipping the players' feet and selling the flesh from their soles on the dark web. If he can make a deal with some demonic dudes, he can sell their souls as well. And chuck their jeans on Vinted...

And yet, all seems well chez Artell. He continues to yumble (this is a Yorkshire mumble, a peculiar dialectical twist that we hear when we meet the folk over the bridge, a sort of husky, never-offensive, not-quite-charming, not-quite-clear, not-quite-muddled delivery of a perfectly adequate, even extensive, vocabulary that nevertheless seems a little forced) his common sense cogitations, rarely pontificating, often empathising, and always calm. Add to this Doug Tharme's fabulous interview (not a mumble or yumble to be heard from this lad!) for American TV as another turret in the wall being built around fortress Blundell Park and I'm convinced that something special is happening on and off the pitch.

Another slice of that particular pudding will be eaten tomorrow. Our New Year's Day fever dream still haunts at the edges of our collective trauma. It was the beginning of what I had thought would be another swing of the Reaper's scythe on our Football League status (we were gone, as I insisted in the diary of a couple of weeks ago). It was that match that started the 21 goals against in January and February, culminating in the humiliation against Doncaster Rovers. It was also the first home game after winning away at Salford...

But banish the hoodoos and voodoos and relax, because the Doncaster game is now behind us and all will be well. A quick check of the Walsall head-to-head reveals that we've had a dozen fixtures at home in the last 50 years. We've won three. That's one in four, which I think I remember reading is about our home average in the League in the last ten years. Depressing.

But don't be depressed! Don't let the SCAN get you down. All these stats only mean that we've as much chance of a win tomorrow as we've had against anyone else (except Doncaster, obviously). And we beat Bradford this season! Things are changing.