Grays Athletic 0 Yellows 4

There will be a time, sometime in the future, when things aren’t going so right, when people will compare an ineffectual midfielder as ‘another Simon Clist’. But this will be immensely harsh. Back in 1996 we had two Simon Clists – Dave Smith and Martin Gray, both much derided in their day. I know I could be alone in pining for such quality and guile in the years since they side-passed the hell out of opponents on the way to promotion.

Clist is the least spectacular of our midfield trio, with Murray’s passing and Bulman’s workrate both widely recognised. Clist is the man who does their housekeeping. When a ball squirms loose, Clist is there to pick it up and get it back under control. Away from home, when it comes loose, he takes off his pinny, puts on his prettiest dress and pops up to score – as he did in the routine demolition of Grays yesterday.

It’s Clist who must be under greatest scrutiny with the, surely inevitable, return of Braveheart Hargreaves. However, it’s difficult to see how it’s all going to fit together. In his pomp Hargreaves was in the Bulman mould, so do we need two brawlers in there? Even in his last season with us, Hargreaves was guilty of lunging tackles resulting from being fractionally behind the game – the years since will surely have slowed him further.

But, there is another side. Hargreaves is a man of obvious experience. More than this, he is a man of integrity and intelligence. Reading his blog, especially recently, has demonstrated how deeply he thinks about his career and its future. His influence in calming everyone’s nerves as the season draws to the close, could be invaluable.

Murray, alongside Constable, are reminiscent of the Mitchell Brothers; controlling the game through the force of their personality. Bulman, for all his bustle, is so focussed on his own game that to have to nursemaid others will be an unwelcome distraction. Perhaps what Hargreaves will lack in ability, he will make up in his influence to steer us through to the title. But, if he does, Clist’s contribution shouldn’t be forgotten.