Cod Almighty | Diary

The Lost Weekend

27 October 2025

Miss Guest Diary writes: I have yet to see Town win at Gresty Road in the four visits I have made, so I did myself a favour on Saturday and stayed away in the hope that my absence would secure the Mariners at least a point. Alas, it seems I am not the jinx in this scenario after all.

I tend not to read the match reports or watch the highlights when we have lost, so I cannot say anything much about the game. Except to note that Cod Almighty's own Jamie Walker scored both Town's goals. It looks like that jinx – the one where we sponsor a player and his career takes a nosedive – might be broken too.

Our usual Saturday routine for days when we don't go to the match involves lunch out and a walk in the country park or local nature reserve, but this week we did something completely different – we defrosted the freezer. It's a chore we normally reserve for deliberately avoiding televised royal events – a tradition started on the occasion of Princess Di's funeral – but there having been no televised royal weddings or deaths for quite some time, the amount of ice build-up became so severe we were forced to break our own tradition. Hearing those chunks of ice dropping into a bowl was like taking off a pair of tight shoes and, judging by a few posts I did allow myself to read on social media, might have been more fun that going to Crewe.

Then there's Sunday, normally filled with tiptoeing around Mr B as he wrestles with the match report. What to do instead? Of course, it was time to deal with all the newspapers I'd bought the day after the Man U game and get the clippings into a scrapbook. Why now? Well, given my aversion to reading about a Town loss, I certainly don't expect to be dashing down to the newsagents on Wednesday morning.

I don't want to seem like I'm giving up on our team before a ball has even been kicked – but have you seen Brentford's long throws? They make even Jordan Cropper's missiles look puny. It's one thing for Greeny to get his head in the way of the efforts of that bloke from Gillingham and quite another to deal with Michael Kayode's rockets. Watching the highlights of Brentford against Liverpool this weekend filled me with dread. Physically, Brentford are exactly the sort of team Town have struggled to cope with this season – only bigger, faster, stronger. I am one of those who was unfortunate enough to witness the 8-1 at Hartlepool 20 years ago – and given what some Premier League teams have done to Championship clubs in the cup this season, tomorrow night could be even worse.

But I am looking forward to meeting up with fellow CA diarists and other football acquaintances for fish and chips beforehand. As on many an occasion over the last few years, it will probably be the best part of the evening. It's a good job Mr B finally remembered to book the tables.