Left Foot in the Grave

I'm not really sure and, as my memory of that time is rather hazy (a form of denial perhaps), I wouldn't want to venture into urban myth territory. Not even to pass on the hoary old tale of Barry Hayles nearly winning our Player of the Season award.

But I confidently expected Stevenage to bite our bum at some future date. This involved fear and dread when it came to every FA Cup draw. Yet, when we started to play them from 2007 onwards, we tended to dominate them. Until....

Mr Hayles had a pretty decent career, didn't he? And this week the circle has practically been completed with him joining St Albans City (not too far from Stevenage and a couple of stops down the line from Chesterfield) from Truro.

Summat strange is going on around here because another copy of LFITG has turned up in the Chesterfield Oxfam shop. Is there a connection with Barton Downs' visit to town on Tuesday, I wonder?

Also in there, and now in my possession along with the two left feet (one hardback, one paperback), is my favourite of all inside-football books, and written, coincidentally, by another Everton fan. It's My Father And Other Working Class Football Heroes by Gary Imlach. If you've never read it I recommend that you do so soon.

Gary Imlach is the cool and witty presenter of ITV4's Tour de France coverage. His book is nothing to do with cycling though. It is a fascinating (and moving) biography of his dad Stewart, who played in the 1950s and 60s for Lossiemouth, Bury, Derby County, Nottingham Forest, Luton Town, Coventry City, Crystal Palace and Scotland.

Has anyone else read this, and if so what did you think of it?

With half-an-eye on finally dispatching my copy to Oxfam I'm re-reading Garry Nelson's "Left Foot in the Grave?" after a gap of seventeen years. The book records our 1996/97 season; it was published soon afterwards.

Because it's about Torquay United I was unable to initially read the book in an ordinary fashion. The events were too fresh in the memory and there was a lot of self-congratulatory "that's exactly how I saw it" smugness on my behalf.

All these years later the book reads as a catalogue of half-forgotten players and even more vaguely remembered games. And, in a way, the diary format is rather similar to how the story of each season unravels on forums such as this. The themes are familiar: we were unlucky; if only this and that had happened; we need to strengthen the team; we're a bit short of cash; just as things are looking better they begin to tail off; out of nothing comes a good result and renewed hope. The insights are often useful - it's revealing which players Hodges and Nelson were unsuccessful in signing - and, yes, it was compelling at the time. But, from afar, it's not terribly exciting and old timers might be left with the feeling of exactly how many times they've been around the block watching this club of ours.

Yet I wouldn't want to discourage anybody from picking up the book again. You'll get something out of it. But maybe now is not the best time to read the book. Had I re-read it after a good season I may have been cheered about how things have improved. Read in May 2014 it comes across as a further lesson in how things change but remain the same. An oddly mundane story: another team; another season when you strip it to basics. Even as a hard-bitten Torquay United supporter there's an air of fruitlessness about it on second reading. That's not Nelson's fault; just the reality of a less than remarkable season that wouldn't normally be recalled. Such ordinariness should make it fascinating. It does have interest, of course, to the point of reminding us that - as Jon recently put it - "We are Torquay United. We struggle along. This is what we do". Otherwise I just wish that there were published diaries from earlier periods of the club's history. Now those would be truly fascinating.