Cod Almighty | Diary

Some Games are Bigger than Others

15 October 2025

In a couple of weeks Town will play Brentford on the Tuesday and Ebbsfleet on the Saturday, two teams six divisons apart in the league pyramid. Any bets on us beating the former and losing to the latter? And, has such a gulf in opponent status occurred at any other time in our history? And, who cares? Personally I'm still cross about the Colchester defeat and I'm planning to rake over the ashes of the dead past and have another moan about it.

As Miss Guest Diary pointed out on Monday, some defeats sting more than others. Against Barnet, for example, we were pants and we were deservedly defeated. Oh dear, I thought, we were pants there, and we were deservedly defeated. I wonder what we're having for tea? Yet I still can't think about the Colchester game without having 'Nam-style flashbacks. 

Was it the fact that their first goal was the kind of kickity-bumble-prod goal scored in an under-fives game on the half time pitch at BP? Was it the fact that their second goal would have been disallowed by anyone with better eyesight than Mr Magoo? The fact that their subs bench wasn't sent off en masse for actually keeping the ball from Amaluzor when he was trying to take a quick throw-in?

I mean, yes, the referee was a rank incompetent but we've come to expect that. Even some of the decisions he made against Colchester were astonishingly poor, not least when Sweeney headed a goal-bound ball off the line for a corner and he gave a goal kick, but was the whole ugly debacle down to him? The Main Stand linesman didn't help anyone, since it seemed to be the first football match he had ever seen and he was still figuring out the rules. But he still isn't in the running for match-ruiner of the day.

I think, after years and years and years of watching football, that some teams are just irritating beyond belief. Unpleasant, snidey, cynical, and just plain nasty. It's not that they are ill-disciplined - indeed quite the opposite - they are superbly drilled at playing the ref and winding up the opposition. Their tactic is disruption, and it is clear that every foul has been thought through and every feigned injury has its purpose. Non-league has plenty of them. You can almost see the point of such anti-football if you're Kings Lynn and your goalkeeper is a landlord called Darren, playing teams with 100 times your budget and tradition. Try and give yourself an advantage in other ways. Try and sneak a result through the back door. But for old league teams, nah. It's just horrible. 

For a while Cheltenham were the prime example of a team whose main tactic was to avoid football at all costs but, unsurprisingly, Colchester have now taken over the tarnished crown. I remember the Cowley Bros going mad on the touchline at Lincoln because one of our players had given something back after being treated as a punching bag all afternoon, and this has been their/his modus operandi before and since. Wherever a Cowley is found, there will be a big bulging bag of cynicism and shithousery that could potentially put a spectator off the game for life. I've nothing against their fans, and fans will always celebrate a victory and why shouldn't they? But if Town ever start playing like Colchester, I'm flouncing off.

I'm proud of my team, even though we've been pretty poor for the lasty 20 years, and part of that pride is that we've never been that kind of a team. Play the game. Play football. Play with your heart and soul.  

Gillingham on Saturday. Unbeaten for ages, now no victory in three. We could win or we could lose. As long as it's a football match and not an exercise in cynicism it will be worth watching. UTM.