Cod Almighty | Diary

Show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser

25 January 2019

Tomorrow one team will play another team in a game of association football to see who can kick a inflated spherical object into the other team's goal the most within a 90-minute period, split into two 45-minute halves. One club has spent 140 years playing this game – initially in the Combination League and Football Alliance, and then, from 1892, in what we now know as the Football League (bar a six-year spell when it wasn't good enough to compete at that level).

The other club, meanwhile, has only been playing this game for 15 years – the exact same length of time it has spent trying to justify itself as a club. It achieved its place in the Football League not through hard work and application but by purchasing an existing Football League club, then changing its name, badge and colours and moving it 60 miles north to a town that was apparently more deserving of a Football League club. Some might say that's cheating.

If there really was a desire for a Football League club in the town then you'd have thought the townsfolk would’ve got behind any one of the non-League clubs in the area at the time and supported them up through the divisions. But in this greedy, materialistic world, where everything has its price, and where everyone wants everything instantly, it's simpler to take the easy route and just buy what you want. Sod grafting. Fuck your moral compass. Trying is for losers.

The Franchise came storming into the second tier of English football in 2004 with all the tact, grace and sensitivity of Lord Flashheart. Woof. And we've had to learn to live with them ever since.

Now, I’m sure there are many of you out there that agree with your West Yorkshire Diary's view on this topic but are becoming tired of a point that many of us at Cod Almighty have been hammering for 15 years. But this is kind of the point. It may become boring to some – us churning out the same tired lines whenever we prepare to face The Franchise; not using their "proper" name and so on – but to say nothing and treat them normally would suggest a level of acceptance.

We must never get to the point where The Franchise feel accepted. We must never get to the point where B-teams feel accepted. The traditions of our beautiful game are getting chipped away at – a little bit here, a little bit there – and all the while your long-suffering, match-attending, working class fan is being edged out of the sport they love to make way for the prawn-sandwich-eating, half-and-half-scarf-wearing, franchise-accepting fan.

I normally like having a look at our head-to-head record against the team we're playing on Saturday but I don't have the desire to treat them the same as any other opponent. All I'll say is that we beat them recently in the FA Cup and that I remember Danny Boshell scoring a Marco van Basten-like goal against them during Alan Buckley's third spell in charge.

Elliot Embleton, Harry Cardwell and Danny Collins are injury doubts, so that must mean Harry Clifton is likely to be back in the engine room. There has been a lot of discussion this week about changes in personnel and formation, and whether it was all really necessary. Is 5-3-2 here to stay? Was it just a stop-gap or an experiment? Was it a temporary tactic to nullify the threat of the opposition?

I get the frustration because we had such a good December using a formation and a system that the players all looked comfortable playing in, but we've suffered badly with injuries and suspensions to key players while also attempting to integrate three new players into the squad.

I've always said that the January transfer window is often more of a hindrance than a help, in the way that it changes squad dynamics and disrupts tactical continuity. Clubs rush to "strengthen" their squads in the same way that people rush to buy big TVs on Black Friday. It's a time of year when everyone seems to be duped into thinking they have to act when, sometimes, what they have right in front of them is already enough.

No one wants us to lose six on the bounce – particularly when it's something we've already done this season – but let's remember that the despicable team we're playing tomorrow have a much larger playing budget than us and are much higher in the league than us. And while we should go into every match looking for a win, the world won't end if we don't get it.

Enjoy the match tomorrow and UTM!