Bright new dawn.

Well, I woke up this morning; it’s a beautiful late summer day. The garden that I did a bit of preparatory work for winter on yesterday is looking lovely, my wife is as good looking as ever and as far as I know my pension will be paid later this week as expected. I’ve survived the Cowley departure.

I had a look at twitter and there was Liam Scully, businesslike as ever detailing the quest for a new manager. As you might expect it was calm, thoughtful, realistic. Business as usual.

I’ve written many times about clubs that we used to share the basement with, Rotherham, Doncaster, Barnsley, how they raised their profile and now prosper in a higher division. Bigger clubs, more prestigious, sustainable. I look at our clubs prospects, our people, the infrastructure, the business expertise, our supporters. In the words of the Fast Show I think it was, that’s us that is.

I struggled to get off to sleep last night. In one of those expressions I would have liked to have thought of myself, one of my fellow supporters said they were suffering from impsomnia. I don’t think that will be a problem tonight.

As we move on we have to assign matters to our in house experts. But as we start the search for someone to take our quest further we do so safe in the knowledge that there will be a wide choice for the boards consideration. The club is on a sound financial footing, not wealthy but not poor either, the stadium is in good order, the training facilities are the envy of many, the playing roster has us at the top end of the table, on merit and the board are acknowledged experts in the field of football administration.

As I consider all that, I think back that we attracted the Cowleys when we were an impoverished shadow of where we are now, what sort of prospect can we offer an ambitious manager keen to further their own career and our profile?

So this morning, despite the lack of sleep, I feel refreshed and reinvigorated. I hope you do too.

Thank you and goodbye.

This is the last thing I expected to be writing about but this afternoon after a day of fevered speculation Danny and Nicky Cowley were announced as manager and assistant of Huddersfield Town. The eagle eyed among you may have spotted an article from me first thing on this blog along the lines of, I’m getting bored of this now, can we talk about something else? By ten o’clock I’d deleted it and the reason for that was a tweet from someone from the Daily Mirror saying the announcement would be made later. Then all hell broke loose.

I should say firstly thank you to Danny and Nicky, thank you for the good times, for the promotion to the football league, thank you for the FA Cup, thank you for the Wembley Trophy Final win, thank you for the championship, another championship, to win league two. Thank you for getting us back to where we were in Colin Murphy’s day.

Does that sound a bit odd? It’s meant to because tonight I’m afraid my principal emotion is anger. I’m angry that the Cowleys said they would never desert us mid season. I’m angry with myself that I believed them, that I believed they were not like anyone else in football. I’d hoped, as you probably did, that they would lead us to the championship and then take their leave. I even entertained thoughts that they might do an Eddie Howe, ridiculous as that may seem. They said they were ambitious, I understood that.

Off they’ve gone then, to Sheffield Wednesday, to Derby, to Forest, to West Brom? No. Huddersfield Town. Huddersfield Town who you may remember broke our hearts when they knocked us out of the league two playoffs, that Huddersfield Town. At the risk of sounding like Braintree’s chairman when the Cowleys joined us, is that the best they can do?

Quite why this has happened after the reassuring move of the families to Lincolnshire, the hope of our first season in League One in ages, the announcement of the competitive budget from the board one can only speculate. Danny constantly refered to the budget, to the small squad, but wasn’t that his preference? After all, Danny always hinted about the budget, they all do.

Its pointless speculating. I personally believe after that blistering start, if it had continued, Huddersfield would have been rebuffed, until the next time of course. Don’t worry about things you can’t change I’m always saying. To be honest by the late afternoon I found myself thinking, I hope this all goes ahead, I can’t be doing with this.

Thanks to the Cowleys of course, we now find ourselves a highly saleable proposition, solvent, with a good fanbase, a state of the art training facility and a list of favourites for the vacancy that makes encouraging reading. With the compensation due, City are well placed to hit the ground running when it comes to recruitment. The worry is that all the goodwill so carefully nurtured could be lost if the right appointment is not made.

Personally I would like to see Gareth Ainsworth come to Sincil Bank, a man, the only man who can engender the same affection that Danny and Nicky Cowley were afforded, other managers available.

Up the Imps

Walker one two and City’s losing streak is passed.

I suppose when you’ve been treated to Everton’s high tempo passing game and Lincoln City’s spirited response to it midweek, sitting through Joey Barton’s poor mans version is likely to be less of a pleasure.

I bracketed Barton and Forest Green Rovers manager Mark Cooper together as two managers who like to criticise Danny Cowley’s teams as crude and workmanlike and it would be churlish to deny that their two sides are easy on the eye yet in their visits to Sincil Bank and in Coopers case several games against the Imps for all their possession the net result of their efforts is, literally, pointless.

Barton is a great one for controversy although his after match comments as told to the Blackpool Gazette seen fair enough to me but I’ll just share with you his final thoughts:

“We came here and barring a 90 second period taught them what the top end of League One is all about”

Well, as that great manager Brian Clough and our own local sage Chris Ashton have said football is all about putting the ball in the onion bag. City did that twice and for all their possession Fleetwood did not. Oh, and the last time I looked which was two minutes ago Lincoln City are more at the top end of League One than Fleetwood. If that’s the case at the end of the season I’ll be a happy man. For all my griping Fleetwood look to be a very good side and if we’re ahead of them we’ll have done well.

Yesterday was not Joey Barton verses Danny Cowley though it was Lincoln City verses Fleetwood Town and whilst the game did not reach the heights of Wednesday evening in terms of excitement and City looked decidedly second best until that double strike, the Imps stopped the rot of those two away defeats and, this being the beginning of the season rocketed up to second in the table. Still no start, in fact no game time at all for Cian Bolger who must have been bitterly disappointed after another excellent outing midweek not to face his former employers and, for the moment the game plan incorporates cameo roles for one of last seasons stand out players, Bruno Andrade and record signing (as far as we know) John Akinde. You have to say though, whilst neither player must be exactly delighted at playing bit parts they are most effective when coming on to shore up the team as the final minutes tick by.

All in all then a game to savour the result rather than the performance perhaps but none the worse for that.