Cod Almighty | Diary

Top Town

20 April 2017

Strangely, the social media buzz over the last week demonstrates, Cheltenham Town in general and Harry Pell in particular did not feature prominently while we have been kicking around the definitive list of Grimsby Town hate figures. Wicklow Diary and Doctor Seusses have made good the omission.

Lets just round off the discussion. To remind you, the Grimsby hate figures are people who definitely and peculiarly have it in for Town (rather than football in general) and who have never been employed at Blundell Park. As Chris Beeley, acknowledges, Terry Curran falls foul of the last criterion, "but what about him in his Sheff Wed days? The perm, the tache, the cheating, the attempted assault on him by a furious Town fan, it is all there in 80's sepia tinted images in my head."

Alan Shearer has been covered and is definitely in. Phil Ball was lucky enough to meet him once:

I was sent to Qatar (ahem) in 2013 to cover a story for ESPN and the New York Times over the 2022 World Cup. Shearer was there at the same jolly, and I'd been given 10 minutes to talk to him. He was really jumpy, grumpy and non-eye-contact. He wanted to get away from me ASAP and I was struggling to engage him in any way. Then I said "You know - last time I saw you play it was at Grimsby, and you scored" to which he replied with astonishing speed "Yeah - that twat Justin Whittle - he was out for me like. Got him in the end though." and with that he seemed to warm to the occasion. Still a wanker though.

To return to Cheltenham, they do have one thing in common with both the Mariners and Saturday's opponents Yeovil: having 'Town' in the club name. It is, in Middle-Aged Diary's entirely unbiased opinion, the most beautiful of the common club name suffixes, both proud and modest. It says "We represent this place. It may not be grand, but it is our home and we want no better." The next time they have one of those things where the Queen makes a great song-and-dance about designating somewhere a new city, I hope we'll have the good taste to stand on the sidelines for that one.

During the 1990s and into the 21st century, I quietly harboured the ambition that we might finish a season as the highest 'Town' in the league pyramid. It felt a more positive aspiration than avoiding relegation without being pie-in-the-sky, and it would somehow have marked us: of clubs of a certain modest mind-set, we would have been the best. It never quite happened, with Swindon and Ipswich having decent teams in those days.

Avoid defeat on Saturday, and we are assured of finishing no worse than 9th in the Towns league table, above Crawley as well as Cheltenham and Yeovil. Win and climbing to 8th, above Mansfield could be a real possibility. Promotion next season and we could be the Town who all other towns, except Ipswich and Huddersfield, aspire to emulate.

Unless of couse Roman Abramovich gets jealous of the status and renames Chelsea as London Town.