Cod Almighty | Diary

Jump into the fire

14 April 2022

At times, football is about who or what you dislike as much as what actually floats your boat. The simple rule is to identify your enemies and then hate them forever. The only thing that can supersede this is a MGPE (massive grief-porn event), like say their entire squad getting wiped out by a meteor strike during an otherwise routine training run. In such cases, one #footballfamily tweet to the club's official account is allowed, along the lines of: "Rivalries aside, I didn't wish to see 40 blokes instantly turned to ash. Condolences from a GTFC fan".

Individual vendettas can be more complex. Universal wrong 'uns like Lee Hughes or Steve Evans don't count, each club has their own Historical Targets of Vitriol. The subjects are purest evil but it's difficult to explain why without sounding irrational or unhinged to the uninformed neutral. Tommy Mooney could be a lovely bloke who is nice to dogs, looks after his garden and gives generously to charity. Who cares, the git made a religion of scoring against Town and that tags him with a level of horror reserved for the likes of Freddy Kruger and James Corden. Likewise Ross Joyce, who can live a live of virtue for 100 years and it won't change a judgement based on one split second of his life. The wanker.

Which long and winding introduction gets us to Dave Challinor. People (yes they are actually people although I have to check sometimes) like Joyce, Mooney, Harry Pell and others are pantomime villians. Is the Stockport boss or is he something else? Daubney isn't going to dig into tomorrow's game with County, waiting instead for BOTB Diary who will do a better job of it. However, it would be remiss not to mention this Challinor interview where he gives his side of a 20-year-old story.

The published crowd on the infamous night he broke Martin Pringle's was a mere 6836, somehow omitting the 25,000 who claim to have packed the Lower Findus and witnessed the incident up close. Daubney was not among them and has based his judgement on the first-hand accounts and Onthisgtfcday footage.

2002 is a long time ago. A time very broadly sandwiched between the 1980s, when Bob Cumming folding up Yorkies and sticking them in his back pocket was a common sight, and nowadays when "shithousing" and reducers are still widely lauded when your team is on the right side of them. Would I be booing Challinor tomorrow? Probably. Would I be purple-faced while doing so? No. 

It's not too late to get a ticket for tomorrow. The club are attempting to recycle unused season tickets, so get in quick and make it a proper sell-out.

UTM.