Carpe Diem Me Duck

It's impossible to look at the photo now adorning the top of the blog without feeling a shiver of nostalgia for that sunny Sunday morning when we packed the stand to cheer out the Southern League champions one by one. Even Steve Wilkinson, whose contribution had largely entailed making sure there was always a nice warm spot on the bench for a newly substituted player.

And the loudest cheers of all were reserved for the gangling lump at the back, clad for no apparent reason in a sheet - Steve (OOOH AAGH) Lenagh, OOOH being the excited gasp as he lined up a shot and AAGH! what normally happened next. But this uncoordinated beanpole will always be a hero because he chose the crunch end of the season to stop being shit just briefly, during which he fired in a couple of crucial goals that probably even he still can't believe.

This is the thing - some players run up and down the Rockingham Road pitch for several seasons, putting in doughty service and making the no.3 shirt their own, but make no lasting impression. Others, sometimes just passing through, grab the moment and become immortal. Is it really over 20 years now since Jackie Gallagher? I can still taste the tension in that Easter match with Kiddy in the title run-in, when we trailed 1-0 for almost the entire game until Jackie got some part of his vast anatomy on a cross and then moments later we were ahead, with over 4,000 going mental. By the time Jackie added to his tally at Sutton on the Monday, he was up there in Poppies folklore and shuffled off into the sunset. Where is Jackie now I wonder? I thought I saw him floating in the sky last summer with a basket underneath, but may have been mistaken.

And then there was Paul Bastock. In many people's eyes this equally gormless cousin of Eddie the Eagle was an unsatisfactory deputy for Shoemake, brought in whenever Morris decided to drop Shoey for being cheerful or popular or something. But then he became the man who shut out Wycombe in a big Cup game at Adams Park and was suddenly loved, even when he later popped up between the Boston sticks.

If the key to immortality is doing something really good in a game that really matters then look no further than Brett McNamara. Never mind his fitful form and regular petulance during Morris's second spell, he is the man who scored the goal that beat Diamonds, which at a stroke made sure he ended his Poppies career still in credit.

So come on Dance or Appiah or whatever currently unsigned combination is our cutting edge in the return match next month, seize the day and we'll love you for ever more. In the biblical sense if necessary.