Day 200

I’ve made it through two hundred days as a football manager. The job sure isn’t as glamorous as it appears from the outside, with finances, injuries, happiness, egos, fans, and a board of directors all to worry about before you even get out on the pitch. I like my job, as much as it sometimes seems like a drag. Even so, I miss the good old days of picking a team then rolling up on match day to guide the lads to victory.

Back then it wasn’t a proper job. It ate up a few hours here and there, sure, but the season was over in no time at all. I didn’t have to worry about the media and its never-ending parade of news and questions and rumours and press conferences. It was me, my tactics, and my team. I liked it that way.

I guess it’s natural to long for simpler times—that’s pretty much what nostalgia is, right? But I feel like there’s a magic gone from the old times, and it can never truly come back. Even if we tried, there’d be that lingering memory of what it’s like now; we’re out of Plato’s cave—no longer in the dark staring at dancing shadows, lost in ignorance and naïvety—and you can’t unsee what you’ve seen. Would that older experience of coaching a football team still be satisfactory? Or hollow and disappointing, because now we’ve seen what casts those shadows?

Maybe in another hundred days I’ll have some answers. One hundred more days of monotony mixed with excitement, glory alternating with a sense of unfulfillment, despair offset by joy, and so very many numbers.

We face fourth-placed Gateshead tomorrow. Both sides lost their previous two matches, so at least one of us will be breaking a streak before it too deeply affects morale. We’re rated at evens to win, despite being the visiting team and the losers in our previous meeting. Ben Clark kept my boy Omar Koroma from exerting any influence last time; I wonder if he can do it again (I sure hope not).

Scout Ian Gardner says that Walsall central defender Oliver Lancashire is indeed a quality player who’d make my starting eleven. Problem is that Lancashire probably wouldn’t be interested in signing for us—either on loan or on a permanent deal. He’d rather be a backup player in League 1 than a star in the Conference. If that’s true then there’s not much I can do about it…other than get promoted and approach him next season.