Cod Almighty | Diary

What's it all about, Shorty?

2 March 2015

Miss Guest Diary writes: Watching the rather dull Arsenal v Everton game yesterday, it didn't take me long to decide that what I was watching wasn't that much better than Town v Braintree for entertainment value. Seeing Giroud head wide, Cazorla blaze a shot way over the bar and Lukaku mess up a one-on-one with the keeper, I thought: "Lenell John-Lewis can do that." Which then had me wondering just how much better Premier League players are than players in the Conference Premier.

I asked a man whose footballing knowledge I respect and his view is that general ability increases by about 2 per cent at each level, so that the average skill of a Premier League player would be 10 per cent greater than that of a Town player. And yet their wages would be 100 times as great. Looking at it like that, modern football is truly broken. Can there be any other profession in which a relatively small increase in ability is rewarded so greatly? It's not surprising really that sometimes our players look like they'd rather be doing something else on a Saturday afternoon.

Not that I'm saying they haven't been making the effort recently: three wins in eight days is brilliant, even if the last two have been way down on the entertainment scale. I don't blame the players for that anyway. The fault for that lies with the manager, who seems unable or unwilling to devise any strategy for home games other than to grind out a boring 1-0 victory. Bringing on Parslow when the game was crying out for a bit of Ollie Palmer magic was baffling, and going on to describe Saturday's snorefest as "the best win of the three" just seems perverse. If Hurst is still manager next season, I am seriously contemplating giving up my season ticket and concentrating all my efforts on going to away games.

The Peaks Parkway roadshow rolls on with another consultation event yesterday, this time at Blundell Park. I was almost tempted to go along when I learned that Carl Magnay was one of the players drafted in to throw his weight behind the plans, as the Grimsby Telegraph so elegantly puts it. But that would have broken one of my golden rules: never meet your heroes. Another rule I have is not to meddle in things which aren't my business. As I don't live, work or pay council tax in the area, asking the council to support the new stadium (even supposing I was in favour of it) would seem wrong.

Closer to (my) home, Lincoln City are still scrabbling around for ideas to dig themselves out of their money pit and have come up with something which is "nothing short of genius". They're going to create a picture of a Lancaster bomber in one stand and have people sponsor each seat. I could make snide remarks about what passes for genius in some circles. Instead I'm going to suggest that non-chairman Fenty takes inspiration from the idea for his new stadium. How about a trawler, or a fish and chip supper, or maybe even Fenty himself in Lord Kitchener pose. Just a thought.