Cod Almighty | Diary

Where's the fire?

27 June 2025

Your A46 Diary has noted many posts on X this week regarding impatience among the Town faithful, some even going as far as to claim that dummies have been spat, heads must be wobbled and that lives need to be got. I can't comment on them as I haven't seen them. This isn't through some puritanical purging of social media or some postlapsarian hand-wringing/head-burying. No, simply that I don't see these heinous, outrageous, apocalypse-affirming comments/tweets/posts/snaps/chats (is grams a thing? Instas?) and so I sit between blissful ignorance and a dose of FOMO. Who wants to see the fallout without the explosion? Not me, and yet through some fluke of the algorithm - I refresh #GTFC as often as most, I'm sure - I mostly see semi-apologetic requests for GTFC admin to "do something".

If such a bluntly benign request is the source of head-wobbling demands then I'm a little lost. If, as I suspect is the case, I'm the one who misses all these maniacal messages then I need to sort out that algorithm. Yes, I admit it, I enjoy a little sightseeing into the madness of a social media meltdown as my inner-Victorian seeks the berserk in the online Bedlam. Tractor watch is all well and good but no one's giving that head a wobble! Geo-spotting is an interesting diversion but where's the pram from which to eject toys?

Somehow, I'm mostly left with just the listing tweets and the tick-off lists that cover the whinges and whines and wagging fingers, but I want the fireworks! Perhaps I am a victim of a maturing online presence, the if-you-ignore-them brigade of do-gooders who refuse to give oxygen to the entertaining posts, meaning that I miss out. But that can't be true because if all I see are people complaining about the fireworks then there must be fireworks to see. Or they're just a ropy box of Standard from the mid 80s and the bang is a pop and the whiz is a fss and the colours are sort of bright but mostly just light and the social media police really mean it when they say there's nothing to see here. I call Detective Frank Drebin on that one.

I can be and I am patient for much of the summer, but as June nears its end, the fixture list is released and the first friendly comes into view, I'll admit to a certain frisson of impatient excitement. This close, I start to think again of competition and conflict and realise that I've missed the day-to-day of stress and angst. Or maybe I'm just rested and ready for that abrasion to come back into my life. Australia aside, cricket is silk not sandpaper and the women's Euros are very late, meaning life is too settled right now (sporting life, obvs - WWIII is having its moments in the sun) and while the calm is good we all miss a daily hate on Doncaster Rovers or whoever will replace them now that they're gone.

Thankfully, Town seem these days to be a club that takes some pleasure from a little trolling of its supporters, and so I seem to get much of my vicarious passive aggression from the club with its silence then teasers about announcements in a few hours' time.

Last night it was for the release of the away shirt at the upcoming Docks Fest. A solid business decision for both parties, but the teaser of '18:30' with the release of the fixtures had us all thinking of a Bogle-Smith-Hume all-round football hybrid of fabulousness.

Just me? Probably. I miss all the goss.