Foyled

I must register my surprise at what happened last Saturday. Not at the fact that Brian Little left the club; in fact the odd element of that was how the news seemed to shock people. I was under the impression that it was the worst kept secret in football; as I understand it he hadn't seen the players since that awful night against Rushden, and I've been led to believe that some of them drew the same conclusion as I did. Namely, he wasn't there because he was being eased out of the way.

No, what amazed me was the fact that the Torquay game wasn't used as a job application by Martin Foyle. How strange that the ghost of Brian Little still hung over the Racecourse, selecting the team even though he was gone. If you were Foyle and you were after the job, wouldn't you look at the situation and think that if you picked your own eleven and they improved on the last couple of games (not a tall order!) then you'd be in the box seat?

Perhaps I'm being naïve. Perhaps the team had been set up in training all week and it was too late to change it, but if that's the case it goes totally against a strong rumour in the Racecourse press box last Saturday that there was dissatisfaction when the team was announced. Anyway, even if the side had been set up all week in training, so what if we changed horses in mid-steam? After all, we were often told by Little that the entire week's training had been spent setting the side up in a particular manner, and all that intense preparation hardly led to success!

I don't know what Foyle's intentions are. It seems logical he'd throw his hat in the ring, and plenty of people have installed him as their favourite, but his press conference last Saturday gave me the impression that he was standing in as caretaker merely to ensure the club isn't left in the lurch. He certainly wouldn't be drawn on the question of whether he was interested in the job.

It might be logical to argue that a fresh start seems to be the obvious direction to take. After all, we were in a remarkable position of being led by three men who had all managed Football League sides, but having all that experience on tap didn't work out did it?