Cod Almighty | Diary

Perfect day

30 January 2017

Choose the Mariners. Choose to spend your Saturday making a 220-mile round trip to Stevenage, a place made up entirely of roundabouts, underpasses, concrete and run-down housing estates. Choose to visit a pub which advertises on-line as a gastro-pub and turns out to have no food, no decent beer and serves drinks in dirty glasses. Choose to watch football in a stadium which could be mistaken for a car showroom, crammed into a stand with only one entrance and exit. Choose to drink a polystyrene cup of warm, grey water masquerading as hot chocolate. Choose to pay for a seat but spend 90 minutes standing up because the big blokes in front won't sit down. Choose to spend the afternoon surrounded by men who think it's OK to make fun of a female steward. Choose to watch a team of individuals who play like they barely know each other, then remember that's because some of them did only meet for the first time last week. Then reflect that the experienced players who helped get Town promoted and the new signings who got us off to a good start this season have been sent out on loan or transfer-listed to make way for replacements who are no better, and in some cases worse, than them. Choose to believe that the new manager playing a formation which is providing scant entertainment and erratic results is just him settling in. And when the dismal game is over and you've lost, choose to pile on the agony by visiting the #gtfc feed on Twitter and watch Town fans with differing views tear into each other, the team and the manager. Choose to revisit the game the following day by watching the highlights on Mariners Player and listening to the manager try to explain what went wrong and justify his methods. Choose to be the spellchecker and typo-spotter for Cod Almighty's match reporter so you can relive the experience yet again, albeit in a surreal and more amusing way. Choose to be a Cod Almighty diarist for five years so that every Monday morning you can revisit Saturday's game, for better or worse, to prise out some thoughts on the events, which might or might not strike a chord with fellow Town fans. But no longer: I'm choosing not to choose being a diarist any more. I'm choosing to spend my future Monday mornings doing something more useful, or more fun, or just doing nothing at all. This is Miss Guest Diary signing off. UTM