Cod Almighty | Diary

Oh, I don't know

31 October 2014

Retro Diary writes: For the last three games supporting Town has been most enjoyable, and having moaned a lot recently the time has come to hand out a bit of credit. With our funny red socks, joke name and large, smoke-bombing support there have been times when it has almost felt 'cool' to support this team. When we finally go up, which we must, I'm not even sure we won't miss the sense of indignant superiority we feel down here in the basement. If it's going to be this year though, we need to get a bit more ruthless with the minnows.

And so to tomorrow's home match with struggling Dartford. You can smell the nervousness already after similar 'easy' home games against Dover, Nuneaton, Altrincham and Southport have finished up in three toothless draws and one dickhead-inflicted defeat. Dartford, despite last year's reprieve, are in the mire again, and won't be coming here with any great hopes. Most of their players will be hoping to chalk up another ex-League ground for their scrapbooks and keep the score down. Unless we can develop some real killer instinct against the division's more hapless and brutish outfits, the 'charge' is going to stall; again.

So is tomorrow's game going to be one of those when the system ticks like a Swiss watch, or one of those formation-fuddled farces where nobody can pass the ball without looking up first and mouthing 'where the fuck is everyone'? In the latter type, it usually takes Hursty 70 minutes to summarily remove Neilson, leaving us with neither our best player nor enough time to win the game. Last saturday against Guiseley he broke the habit and removed Neilson at half time, and the extra twenty-five minutes helped us to relax a bit and ease to victory. This was helped by the fact that Neilson's replacement was the newly fit and very tricky-looking Arnold, and the opposition had not one but two Boshells to ease casually past, and a number 11 who was apparently unable to stand up in the wind.

This week it's goodbye to the unsung Stuart Watkiss, and hello to Harry Pell, newly arrived from the proper and rightful Wimbledon. At 6'4" we surmise that he should be worth approximately 1.5 Scott Browns. He will start tomorrow, as long as he can get his all washing done.

The Chronicle this week contains a slightly anodyne interview with Dep Doig, but the no-bullshit 'peoples' match reports continue to shine. Apart from Pell's arrival, the Telegraph has been mainly filled with Lenell-promotion, clichés and fluff, which is always a sign that things are going well. Monday's 'Hurst keen on a long cup run' was a particularly desperate space-filler, Hurst usually, of course, being keen on cup runs that to come to a premature close, at a stroke inflicting on himself a humbling lesson in humanity and aiding the team bus's carbon footprint. Wednesday's piece on Scott Brown entitled 'Injury left me gutted' was another pointless contribution – his usual injuries, of course, causing great joy and being celebrated with cake.

Other news from around the Conference: the aforementioned Southport dickhead is out for a while with a bad knee injury having been hilariously kicked good and hard by totally fed-up Welling player-manager Jamie Day, with 90+7 on the clock the Saturday before last. Welling had spent most of the game with ten men after an assault by Brodie on their keeper had led to the keeper's dismissal for retaliation, Brodie only receiving a booking. Outnumbered Welling held the hosts bravely at bay until 90+4, when they conceded the game's only goal from a Brodie cross. We should say at this point that Cod Almighty has no official line on violence against dislikeable players, but on the whole tends not to condone it. Retro Diary, however, would like to suggest that this is a clear case for invoking the principle of 'reasonable force'.