Cod Almighty | Diary

There is no such thing as a friendly

17 July 2018

Middle-Aged Diary has instinctive preferences, developed as my consciousness of the football world grew in my early 1970s childhood, and therefore very stubborn things. I prefer Celtic to Rangers, Liverpool to Everton, Man City to Man United. That was reinforced as United became a symbol of everything I hate about modern football (I always hated Chelsea as well) and has somehow survived City becoming an even bigger symbol of what is wrong with the game.

It no doubt helps that I have a brother-in-law who is a Man City season ticket holder and that my son has them as his second team. I may be a nicer, or wetter, person than I sometimes think. I don't take pleasure in others' footballing misfortunes. One of the few childhood prejudices I've overcome is against Arsenal, once my least favourite club but one I now quite like on behalf of a good friend. One of the highlights of my recent holiday was being able to be charitable towards some Germans we were in a bar with as their national team were getting knocked out of the World Cup. We must have done a good job: they twice gave us a friendly 'hello' when we met them later in our stay.

Sunderland I've never quite fixed on. That wetness of mine meant I was on the wrong side of history when I first became aware of their existence, winning the 1973 FA Cup; one of my brothers supported Leeds at the time, so I was not on the side of the underdogs. The memory grew to be a fond one though: Jim Montgomery's double save; Bob Stokoe, raincoat flapping, as he runs across the Wembley pitch. Stir in a dash of Hereford and there is the romance of the cup, distilled for a lifetime.

Two decades later, I made a good, Sunderland-supporting friend. One day I was browsing the paper near transfer deadline day.

"I'm just looking to see if Grimsby could be signing a player from the lower levels," I said.

"Is there anyone lower than Grimsby?" my friend asked.

This was in our Buckley prime. Wet I may be, but there are limits. "Yes, quite a lot of teams. Sunderland included," I told her (We were three or four places above them in the second flight at the time). My cut-down obviously rankled as she made sure I knew when Sunderland overtook us a month later.

The memory of Bob Stokoe got tarnished when I read an account of him accusing Brian Clough of shamming when Clough suffered the injury that ended his playing career. So Sunderland I quite like, but probably not as much as most of my generation.

And then there is this: ill-written, inaccurate (for the umpteenth time: Grimsby is NOT in Yorkshire), superficial garbage, that superficiality in no way excused by the author wearing it on his sleeve, almost with pride. As for UFO sightings, any self-respecting "Cleethorpian" would know a low-flying orb is just the Mariners practising Sladeball.

Tonight's game is being marketed as a friendly. But I hope Michael Jolley will pin that article on the dressing room wall and send his team out with clear instructions to win, to win well, and if we can't beat them, to beat them up instead.

Or, of course, we could accept that fans of other clubs have a right to laugh at us as well as with us, and that we have probably said and written far worse about other teams ourselves. We'll get over it, yes?