Cod Almighty | Diary

The Iceman Cometh

23 May 2025

With no clear way of looking forward right now, your A46 Diary will have a little look back instead and relive some beautiful moments from my favourite player this season. I haven't worked out the recipient of this award in any empirical way; no stats, no counting contributions in key moments, just acknowledging a series of images of one player settling pleasantly into the long-term memory.

McEachran deserves his awards and seeing the way he can control and use a ball is a delight. Rose's contributions can't be overestimated. McJannet's seamless entry into the team and his anointment as everyone's default man of the match will always be notably impressive. Hume's growing ability to glide into the midfield and drive us forward never failed to excite. The revelation of CAM Green. The maturing of Khouri.

All valid, all great, all had magical moments that have made for a super-if-not-solid season. But not my favourite. Favourites aren't about most effective. Favourites are the players who make you feel a little bit (or a lot!) special, like you've witnessed something out of the ordinary, something head-turning, phone-ignoring, edge-of-seating, and they do it often. Not necessarily all the time, but often enough so that's it's not a surprise, more an affirmation.

I've always said Town's best player in my time is Paul Groves. Solid, dependable, reliable, played all along the spine and was our best option in every position. Scored, defended, passed, led, scruff-of-the-necked, he did it all week in week out, and deserves every commemoration he receives. Mendonca was class, Donovan a constant threat, Burnett and Handyside played different games to everyone else, Pouton was the eagle-eyed, plastic-groined, all-action man. The cameo kids Todd, Bonneti, Beasant, Bennet, Santos, Oster, Pollock, Henderson. So many memories, so much talent.

But favourite? No. That goes to Jack Lester. The more the years stretch since he left us the more I miss him. He played football like a romantic writes poetry, as if he got to say that this is the game I want to play, reality be damned. A fluid player, slick, quick and flick after flick, absolutely focused yet able to see everything around him. Head down, legs firm, feet too quick to see, ball glued to terrific toes, defenders scrambling, lunging, falling, raging. He was a joy to watch, as entertaining as any player I've seen in black and white with a bag full of tricks and a sack full of talent. We've not seen anyone as effective, as mercurial, as beautiful as him in all the time since he was sold to Forest 25 years ago but that hasn't stopped me from looking out for a spark of Lesterian joy every season.

And there have been sparks this season. So, the inaugural Jack Lester award for A46 Diary's made-me-feel-most-special-this-season goes to (drum rolls, spotlights, envelopes torn open, etc) Jason Dadi Svanthorsson.

Of course it goes to Svanthorsson. What a journey he's had in the last nine months. Hopes were high, perhaps unfairly so but to be expected given his exoticism. An Icelandic international? A Champions League goal scorer? How could we think he'd be anything but a world beater? He's gonna tear it up! He'll be sold for millions in January!

The initial reality wasn't quite the same as the dream. Yes, he was quick-footed, had a great touch, could drive at defenders, but how much did he actually affect the games he played in? He flattered to deceive, an EFL Erico Sousa, and, when he found himself out of the team, his absence was met with shrugs. Our hopes of a quick, right-footed right winger, the Iceman come to bring balance to the attacking force were dashed. Him on the right, Vernam on the left, Rose through the middle. Unstoppable. Except he kept getting stopped.

This is about feelings and favourites and comfortable memories, so I'm not going to go and look this up, but I remember it as Vernam's injury allowing Svanthorsson back into the first 11 and filling in on the left. A revelation. Cutting inside was instantly his thing, gliding past defenders, cutting across the midfield and, with the smoothness of Barry White, he let the music play as he appeared on the edge of the box, poise personified and elegance embodied. This was it, this was what we'd been waiting for.

It changed again, of course, the team's erratic form necessitating a change of formation which led to the axing of wingers. The Iceman came, got dropped, came again, got dropped again. Except he didn't. In a remarkable transformation, he became our best wing-back, stealing the show from Hume who had arguably operated more effectively in a back four.

His energy was amazing, up and down the pitch all game long, touches and tracking, dispossessions and dribbles. Defensively, he could take the ball off an attacker's toe, turn, lay it off or go on another run forward, skating between opposition players. For the Iceman, football is a dance and when he forced the own goal against Doncaster, he was the child of beauty and grace and well-earned luck, a Lesterian goal.