Cod Almighty | Diary

It's time what's killing this planet!!

22 May 2025

Time is a great healer. How many occasions have we walked away from Blundell Park vowing not to turn up for the next match after spending our hard-earned cash to witness us capitulate early, lose the game before half time, not score, and look generally clueless? By Tuesday or Wednesday, presuming we don’t have a midweek game, we then realise we don’t really have anything else we’d rather do; that we’re a bit lost without our weekend dose of GTFC, and that, yes, we’ll probably be there on Saturday after all, hoping to see a more positive performance and result.

Our return to the football theatre is, to some degree, inevitable. We are the moth to the GTFC flame. It’s compelling evidence that once again demonstrates we go not because of results but because of routine driven by familiar times, familiar places and familiar faces. It’s the sense of belonging we all secretly yearn for. Where would we be without it?

So, when a fan says they won’t be renewing their season ticket since we were a bit shit at Blundell Park last season, it’s a natural reaction… but one based on the wrong criteria. Given time, they soon realise their season ticket — as expensive as it is for many of us — buys you more than football. It’s their gateway into the GTFC family, and that’s why they will likely renew it, and so will their friends, and then there won’t be this massive drop-off in sales that some supporters think will happen, despite prices increasing.

That’s not to say performances and results don’t affect some fans’ decision to renew. There will always be a value-for-money argument, based on subjective metrics. You can’t please everyone.

Time has already given your West Yorkshire Diary a bit more perspective when reflecting on the season just gone. To put it bluntly, we improved in some areas but remained stubbornly inconsistent in others. And our defence, particularly at home, leaked like a tap. We weren’t good enough for the play-offs, and I don’t think anyone would argue against that. It was fun to think we were, though. In the moment, anything felt possible.

In reality, we’d have lost the play-off semis, or the final, and even if we did fluke our way to the third division, I can’t think it would’ve been much fun given some of the heavy defeats we were handed by a handful of fourth division teams last season.

If you’re a season ticket holder who hasn’t yet renewed, you have just over a week to reserve that seat of yours before someone else takes it. Times are hard, money isn’t easy to come by, but think of those familiar times, familiar places and familiar faces. Could you really bear to be without them when August arrives? I think we all know the answer to that.

UTM!