Upstairs Downstairs.

Every now and then Rob Makepeace of BBC Radio Lincolnshire is kind enough to invite me on to his football show to talk about Lincoln City. This can be a bit of a worry as I possess little tactical knowledge of the game and some of the other contributors seem to be wannabee Gary Linekers whereby I tend to subscribe to the Rob Bradley school of radio speakers, there are those who make their living out of football and there are those who turn up to watch it. City win, I’m happy. City lose, I’m sad. That’s about the sum of it. I did play football in my youth, at the exalted heights of the Lincoln and District Sunday League, Division Four. Make of that what you will.

One thing I’m going to blow my own trumpet about though is a time I went on the radio towards the end of last season. City, as per usual, having flattered to deceive with a good run, settled into their now familiar end of season slump and we were staggering towards the end of the season which couldn’t come too soon. It was a good job we did have those points on the board because we weren’t garnering many more and the foot of the table was getting nearer weekly.

Virtually all of the previous speakers were gloomily predicting the end of yet another era, the manager doesn’t have what it takes for reasons I shall come to in a moment and we probably should start looking for a new one. I disagreed if only on the basis that the team at the time was not the managers, it was the previous managers and it was no use jumping to conclusions until Chris Moyses had a chance to assemble his own squad. To my relief my comments were fully endorsed by studio guest Mark Hone, a former favourite of mine at Sincil Bank. (I’m not just saying that Mark)

Now football, as we all know, began towards the end of the nineteenth century and in many ways its outlook hasn’t changed. It’s like Downton Abbey. You have Lord Grantham, Bob Dorrian, pulling the strings and providing the money and Carson the butler, Chris Moyses, spending it but instead of fine claret, the dosh is going on footballers. There was a storyline in Downton where a footman or was it the chauffeur, got one of the daughters of the house up the duff, they married and the rascal had to be promoted upstairs to much gnashing of teeth. Chris Moyses went the other way; he went from drinking the sherry to serving it. This also led to much harrumphing from us the fans. Directors running the team, it just isn’t done.

Except in our case it is and with, whisper it quietly, with a degree of success although it’s most certainly early days. How many of those contributors to the radio show are now so gloomy? If they’re anything like me they’re waiting for the wheels to fall off but for the moment let’s bask in the heady reflected glory (not forgetting our place of course) of City sitting at the right end of the table looking upwards for a change rather than staring into the abyss.

Directors running the team? Maybe it’s not such a stupid idea after all. In any event Earl Moyses has now joined the proletariat so we don’t have to mind our p’s and q’s.

Oh and by the way, City beat Chester 3,2. Knew there was something I wanted to say.