From Hawaii to The Racecourse?

Lets imagine that Mr S.Claus is a football fan, and, having just vacated Honolulu at the end of the yearly long old slog, he had a free present left to give to a team. Who / what would you want him to deliver?  In the interest of giving a fair and balanced opinion I have had to ban myself from selecting anything to do with my team, and therefore by definition anything negative to do with a certain other team!

In the spirit of the season I think it is only fair to look lower down the leagues. The Premiership clubs remind me of an only child of 2 millionaires, they have everything they could ever need and are frankly not grateful for any extra presents anyway! So, Steve Evans' arrest and banning from anything to do with football was the first thing to jump into my head, but, whilst this may be deserved and to the liking of all other clubs I thought it a bit too harsh for Christmas. Maybe that should be more of an Easter gift!!

Then I thought Billy Sharp to get top goalscorer. In my mind this would be a fitting tribute to the man, who has emerged with great credit from a period of personal nightmare. If he stays at Donny I hope this happens, but he's currently being linked with a club that I hope score nothing but own goals for the rest of the season!

Tamworth to get a result at Goodison would be great, but then it would give the crazy anti Moyes minority more to get their teeth into. Tamworth's chairman I'm sure has already had his Christmas present with that particular draw anyway!

Suddenly the answer came to me in a moment of great inspiration, possibly the only time that anyone has been inspired by looking at the Conference table. Sitting at the top is a club that has had to put up with its fair share of nonsense. They've had an owner who bought the club purely with the aim of winding it up and making money from property development. Recently they've run out of money and had to prove to the league that they would be able to to fulfil their fixtures. They have then lost a manager just as they were moving along nicely.  They are also a club who gave me one of my best childhood sporting memories thanks to Mickey Thomas and Steve Watkin!

Now though, they are owned by their Supporters Trust, have made money from an agreement with their local University and have a new, and seemingly more than competent, Manager in Andy Morrell.

So Mr Claus, if you have time on your way back to Lapland, can you stop off at the Racecourse Ground and leave the Conference (sorry Blue Square Bet Premier) trophy under the tree. Diolch yn fawr!