Cod Almighty | Diary

Tale of Two Cities

27 April 2022

Exeter City have been promoted! Good for them and good for our Podge, currently on loan with the Grecians. Why should we care? Well for a start it's another win for fan ownership. More relevant for Town perhaps is that success has been a while coming. Exeter have been knocking at the door since 2017 with a series of promotion near misses. However, under the bonnet they've been getting things right during this period and before.

A strong youth system and the impressive redevelopment of St James Park are the headline indicators of this. Less obvious is the community focus of the club, reflected in the buzz around matchdays for both home and away fans. When you get things right off the pitch, success is inevitable. No matter if it takes a while coming, sit back among friends in the Famous Exeter City Real Ale and Cider Emprorium, or FECRACE, and reflect on being part of something special that goes beyond 4.50pm-ish on a Saturday.

Contrast that to the puppet show played out at Manchester City last night featuring clubs who regard their fans as football zombies, oblivious to any motive as long as money is chucked at new signings on a regular basis. 

You reap what you sow, in this case with the otherwise unfathomable image of rows of camera-holding City zombies beaming at the sight of an opponent burying a goal against them in a cup semi-final. 

There are many factors that have led us to this point and we'll pick "rubbish governing bodies" as a neat segue to the National League.

The choice of the taxpayers' running track for the play-off final is bad enough. To its credit, it does distract from the fact that the June 5th date is so late, it may as well be two weeks into next season.

Although not as bad as last season's Covid-dictated date of June 20th, getting there and losing is double trouble. This is illustrated by beaten finalists and Saturday's visitors Torquay. Player contracts and pre-season become a right mess and they've been playing catch-up since. At Blundell Park they looked like a better team than mid-table because they are. Critically, as the season reaches the final bend and David Coleman's voice goes up an octave, the Gulls are lamenting being sat on the start line tieing their laces as the gun went. 

Can Town avoid the jostling and break for a podium finish in the cursed play-off places? Second looks beyond us, with Wrexham handing out a tonking last night. Notts County won as well, pushing us into seventh. Their victory left opponents Dover with no points, still only on the start line after nine months of toil, 23rd in a 23-team division. Now what were we saying about rubbish governing bodies?