[SaltergateBorn]

Well, that’s 2 points we`ll never get back.

I didn`t watch the match but I listened to it on 1866 and it seems to me that, but for an act of sublime stupidity on the part of our `keeper, we would have won this one easily; so it has unnecessarily cost us 2 points which may prove expensive come next May. (It also buggered up my prediction, but that`s another matter.) I haven`t seen a video of the incident so I don`t know whether it was intentional or not but I`ve read a few comments that suggest it appears to have been and it has to be said that he does have form.

What I`m really struggling to get my head around, however, is why the hell we continue to think it sensible to take the field without a substitute `keeper on the bench; especially when our first choice may turn out to have an IQ in single figures. I understand the argument that they`re rarely needed, but when they are and you haven`t got one it can seriously bite you on the bum. It has done twice now in a couple of years. This time it is `only` a couple of points; the last time (against County in the play-offs) it may, just possibly, have cost us promotion and a return to the EFL.

To quote the great Robert Allen Zimmerman; when will they ever learn? The answer, presumably, is blowin` in the wind somewhere around Whittington Moor.

PS My other half has just told me it was Pete Seeger who wrote it, not Bob Dylan. There you go. Another few braincells have just died, it appears.

[Dancingwilldoit]

I'd have a word with your better half if I was you. Bob Dylan did write it and Pete Seeger sang it later.
Have seen a clip of the incident and it was 100% a red. Was surprised when we signed him but was quite impressed with what I saw in the friendlies. Probably a lesson learned for Paul Cook.

[SaltergateBorn]

Thanks for that, Dancing. It`s not very often I get to be right and to tell her that she`s wrong (although I`ll probably make sure I`m nearer to the door than she is when I tell her).

[Devongone]

Love to say I told you so, so when we signed him I said on here we'd need another keeper for the bench as Covolan is prone to early departures. We haven't got another keeper, so we now need to sign one. I think that is the reason Port Vale are loaning him out. They paid money for him I think, but he let them down with similar behaviour. He is a decent keeper - a step up on what Stone Loach is now - WHEN HE STAYS ON THE PITCH. But he's Brazilian with a temperament similar to their leader. And if I and lots of others knew about Covolan why didn't Cookie? This was an accident waiting to happen.

Above all else a goalie has to be reliable and available every week. If he's erratic he'll make a struggling team struggle even more. Ask Everton. Despite Pickford's sometime brilliant saves they look permanently unsettled and likely to concede. On Saturday had he not tried to play the hero and pretend he could keep in a ball, which was already a yard over the line, the errant Godfrey wouldn't have broken his leg. You never saw Gordon Banks do that kind of garbage. Do simple things perfectly and once in a while make the best save anyone has ever seen, because you were calm enough to read it, see it and do it all in one move. I had talent, but temperament is massively more important.

I agree it is a huge risk to play without cover for your keeper when a substitute could be available. We've lost vital games in the past with a keeper reduced to total immobility through injury and a Division One play-off with an emergency keeper signed, despite not having played a competitive game for two years, who let one in from the halfway line. You'd think a club which has produced the two greatest English goalies, Banks and Sam Hardy, might just learn the lesson that SGB's wife is probably teaching him with a rolling pin. (That's always made me laugh, the idea of wives hitting their husband with a rolling pin. There is something inherently funny about a rolling pin.) If she says it's Pete Seeger it's easier just to hide the album cover.

[Devongone]

My suggestion for a loan keeper would be a cheeky one, but they might play ball. Brandon Austin from Spurs. He's 23 and he's been on loan in Denmark and the USA. At least he'll have been coached and probably knows how to stay on the pitch. He's also of an age at which real competitive games are the only way he is ever going to make a pro-career work. He should be at least good enough to make Covolan think.

Nick Pope's career was based on successful loans in non-league football, so why wouldn't Spurs give it a go with their 5th choice when their first choice is 35 and going backwards?

[spireitematt]

Ben Foster doesn't have a club. He is also a keen cyclist so he could cycle round the hills of Derbyshire to his heart content.

We've got a young keeper on non-contract terms called Chadwick, so guessing he will be starting between the sticks on Saturday against Aldershot. I still think we need another keeper who is contracted to the club.

[SaltergateBorn]

A rolling-pin wouldn`t come into it, Dev. Likely as not it would be something much sharper. Her aim`s not as good now as it used to be, though. Nowhere near as good as BOK`s was with a blackboard rubber.

A few years ago in a shop window far, far away (in a small town in Colorado, as it goes) I saw a T-shirt with the legend printed on it “If a man says something in the middle of a forest where no woman can hear, is he still wrong?” Sadly, it was closed for lunch (they still do that over there); otherwise, I`d have bought it.

Unfortunately, `keepers like Banksy aren`t too thick on the ground these days and I`m not at all sure, Matt, whether Ben Foster would be interested in coming down to National League level. Might be worth an approach, though, as with the Spurs `keeper you mention, Dev. I`m slightly surprised that nothing has been announced yet, so we may be going with young Chadwick.

Just read an article in the DT to the effect that Dorking`s manager has said that they recognised Covolan as being `volatile` and that they “planned it perfectly”. In fact, he seems quite proud of the fact that they got him sent off. Hmmm. Interesting, that. I`m not condoning what he did for a second, but it does suggest there was a bit of provocation going on. I`m afraid it`s something he`s going to have to get used to now.

[Devongone]

Our manager says we'll be making an announcement regarding a keeper shortly. He thinks we will appreciate that signing a keeper to provide three week's cover is next to impossible.

I've news for him - he, we, need permanent cover. Covolan is volatile. Everyone except Cookie in the National League knows he is more temperamental than Nathan Ashmore. Covolan has a lot of talents as a keeper but decision-making isn't amongst them. We need a keeper who can come in and play well enough for Covolan to think I can't afford to let this guy get a run in the team.

I'm afraid if we throw in rookie youngster National League teams will target him mercilessly and some of them have some big strong guys up front. To succeed young Chadwick would need to be showing an impressive level of dominance at his current level. Is he? The risk is of a Swede at Oldham turning out to be a turnip.

By the way SGB, I didn't know BOK was an ace marksman with a blackboard rubber. I did however see a youngish English master named Hall I think launch a ferocious rubber in 4RP's form room at some miscreant. Unfortunately he wasn't as accurate as BOK and the rubber bounced off the lad's desk at a wild angle and smashed into the mouth of an innocent by-sitter. Blood and teeth! And no one complained.

One thing your friend BOK did do was punish my mate Vaughany several times. He used to get in trouble a lot, but it was only for a tiny percentage of the stuff he actually did wrong! At the old school BOK hauled him off to the French book room several times and either spanked him over his knee, or slippered him. Up at Brookside they gave him a new office to interview wrongdoers. Like you, my mate would hear nothing against BOK. He thought he'd always been fair with him, genuinely liked the man and wouldn't have hesitated to go to BOK for advice. The world has certainly changed. Good to hear it was your wife's throwing arm you fell for.

[SaltergateBorn]

The problem is, Dev, I`m sure that Covolan is going to get targetted pretty mercilessly as well from now on. He clearly has a known weakness and Dorking aren`t going to be the only ones to try to take advantage of it. I`m afraid it`s something he`s going to have to learn to deal with and to overcome.

Yes, BOK was the sort of bloke you could go to for advice - once you`d got past The Glare and the terror that it could inspire. I did several times and he was always happy to give it.

[Devongone]

You are right on all counts SGB. Covolan is old enough to know better. There are always choices when dealing with a situation as a keeper. You can't just not deal with things, so he has to make the sensible choices, or he is no use to us, which I think was Port Vale's conclusion.

As for BOK he obviously knew my friend liked him and didn't find him terrifying. There was obviously much more to him than the glare, which could of course freeze you across a crowded room. I suppose having once been fixed with a BOK glare is a good base rate for how intimidating, or otherwise, life outside school can be.