Cod Almighty | Diary

A game of two halves: if only

10 March 2026

You don't get rank, game-changing incompetence at football anymore. Sure, you can groan when your highly-rated winger is so busy considering his next feint that he lets the ball roll out of play, and jeer when an opponent passes directly into touch, but the moment soon fades.

When did you last see a goalkeeper let the ball slip through his hands, or a defender play a pass back direct into an empty net? All you really have is the buttock-clenching thought it might happen when it's your own goalie or central defender, without any of the compensating expectation when the opposition have possession in their own penalty box.

What you do get nowadays is as awful lot of injury time to compensate for the fact that matches are now played over four quarters. Goalkeeping coaches have no doubt wrought wonders for standards, but they don't seem to have done anything for the fitness of their charges given that mid-way through each half one will inevitably succumb to cramp.

So here is Newbegin Diary's wheeze for jollier football: when a goalkeeper needs treatment, they should be made to leave the pitch for 30 seconds, the same as anyone else. The time it takes them to get off should be plenty for a team-mate to put on a spare top and a pair of gloves.

At the very least, we might get games flowing through for 45 minutes. At best we'd restore that wonderful, long-lost sense of gleeful anticipation when an outfielder is guarding the net.

You know it makes no sense at all, but sometimes nonsense is what we need most from football.