Cod Almighty | Diary

To be outside with a promotion race on would be heaven, but it'll have to wait

26 March 2020

There's bird song outside, and what could be a mower, and the occasional car. The sky above rooftops and through still-bare trees is a hazy blue. It could be a suburban Sunday, with the world beyond my open window trying to lure me outside to enjoy the year's first spell of settled warm weather.

Middle-Aged Diary is luckier than most. My son is too old to need entertaining or educating by me, and I'm the only one in the household who is making use of our IT resources, for a job which transfers naturally and easily from office to home. I would love to be outside, but no more than I would on an ordinary weekday. And I'm lucky that my job is close enough to healthcare that I can, in a small way, make a difference. Grimsby Town, too, are trying to do their bit.

But we all have something missing. March to May is my favourite time of year, but two years ago, Russell Slade had turned it into what felt like a nightmare, the pleasures of the waking world lost to me as in my head I turned over, again and again, our chances of conjuring up a point against Port Vale. I'd turn the clock back now, if I could. Or better still go back even a couple of years earlier, when in 2015 the Mariners hit fine form and a promotion race gave us the tremulous emotions of a love-sick teenager, each goal, for or against, like the smile of a beloved, bestowed or withheld.

The Cod Almighty Diary has no powers. We can't make news happen, and we could be entering days when whittering about football or the absence of football will stop being a welcome distraction and become an irritation. But if you have a mind to reminisce, everything we have written is still there: all the match reports, all the diaries. Use our season indexes and search to explore your favourite corner of our world at your leisure.

Of all my favourite Marches, 1990 is the favourite of all: let Paul Thundercliffe take you back. As for March 1939, well you probably would need a particularly robust pair of Grimsby Town blinkers to count that a favourite. Besides, I much prefer Cod Almighty's own version: the one where George Tweedy did not get flu.

May you stay clear of all infections.