Cod Almighty | Diary

And then he buggered off to Yeovil Town

10 October 2025

We've had a bit of nostalgia this week. Happy Phil Jevons Day for yesterday. Twenty-five years next year! Any plans? A few drinks, a rewatch of the whole match? A Banksy-style mural on the walls of Anfield, sprayed under the cover of darkness? Moon a few scousers down Stanley Park? Or just raise a glass of whatever you fancy and toast our longest memory, our parents' most eye-sparkling anecdote, the best YouTube discovery any sub-35 Town fan can make, and remember, in Jevons' memory we trust.

And the old acquaintances keep coming with the return of the Cowley brothers. Your A46 Diary has an impulse to put a capital B on their sibling status given their branding over the last dozen years. The first and second coming of Jesus Christ Hoof-it-far, the saviours of Imps, the killers of Terriers, the rejectors of Bantams and now the almost-sacked yarn-spinning football yobos of the Us.

Sadly, they have an amazing record against us. Long-time readers of this particular diary will know that my name comes from ploughing a furrow in the A46 for the many long years I worked in the cathedral city as a "codhead scum" English teacher, suffering the barbed taunts of "Feed the Read" each time we played and lost to the Cowleys' cowboys. I, of course, had been nothing but magnanimous in the years leading up to the crying Imps' request to not play us on Boxing Day after all those defeats. Nothing but magnanimous as any football fan would have been...

Back to the present: Tharme has a hernia-type injury, Rose is closer every day, Lavelle will soon be available to plug holes in the back, Gilsenan is getting there, slowly, slowly, and is a terrific player who we want on the pitch, senior pros are gaining fitness, younger chaps are learning more about how we want to play. All in all, we're looking forward and looking up with what is the strongest squad we've had in years.

It's not just the Brothers Brand but Colchester United themselves who have a great record at BP. The forecast, therefore, is for a double bogey to be double dumped on our little corner of NE Lincs. And Artell tells us that the Us are a team in a false position. A good team, a well set up team, a management duo who know how to put a team out, a team to be wary of, but a team that we can certainly challenge. They score lots and concede lots, 16 of each. They average one point per game. That holds true away from home: five game, five points, six scored, seven conceded, one win and two draws. So, only two defeats. It will be a challenge.

They have a former Mariner in Owura Edwards, so there's probably a goal headstart for them. Edwards name seems to crop up quite often but I'll have to admit I have no memory of his time with us. He played for us 17 times, scoring one goal, in that horrendous Holloway lock-down-darts-match season that's best forgotten. Suffice to say, he's a pacy left-winger and we showed last week at Salford that we can deal with pacy left-wingers, so bring them and him on!

On a final note, I do enjoy Artell's not-at-all-veiled comments about the budgets of others. This week, it was a comment on Colchester's 'hardships' and the restrictions they've faced because of ownership changeovers falling through. "We wouldn't have a problem with their budget," he said. It's part expectation management, part self-aggrandising and a whole lot of fuck you! I love it!