Cod Almighty | Diary

June - Football's Inescapable, Yet Moreish Groundhog Day

18 June 2025

The month of June has moved past its halfway point, and for avid football supporters, or obsessives like myself, it's brought with it a familiar pattern of churn and a somewhat hypocritical passing of the time.

Every year around this juncture, we have the same happenings in a repeated order. We all roll our eyes at it, yet we all seek it out when the sixth month of the year hits.

It starts with the retained lists: who's staying where, who's moving on, who's available. We all pick out those players we'd like to see join the Blundell Park rollercoaster, while the majority are written off based on unreliable Wikipedia statistics. Then comes that tinge of jealousy and mild concern as your divisional rivals begin to make additions, while the 'Come on, do something Town' gif gets regular outings on social media.

The background to the manager's summer update video was suitably analysed for road markings, landmarks, and coastlines in the hope of finding a tenuous link to a potential new signing, as is any sort of content the club puts out on multiple platforms.

ITK's (some genuine, some less so) make hay. "Grimsby lead the race for such and such" brings excitement and pre-event analysis on how said player will fare. Though it has to be said, this particular aspect of summer sensationalism has been on a much lower scale in our new(ish), data-crunching era.

Regardless, battleships emboldened with the Mariners' badge and retitled in a way that suggests future league domination come to the fore with regularity, as does some poor lady named Sue Perb's Facebook handle. The exact opposite of the above is also true in equal measure, but this VFTF diarist is a glass half full kinda guy, so we'll gloss over that.

Friendlies are announced. Some are happy with a few local away days and the hosting of League One sides, others are upset that Real Madrid aren't coming to town.

The new kits are too stripey, or not stripey enough; sponsors are scrutinised; and where are the red socks?

We lap up pictures and footage of tractors, pitch renovations, and amenity improvements at Blundell Park - because, well, we really, really do miss the place in that (approximately) 10-week hiatus.

The aforementioned hypocrisy is that I still find myself sucked into all of the above every year. Most of us do, I think. We probably annoy ourselves by this, but it's our attempts to fill the void.

July will soon be here with its similarities too. We'll be doomed as we lose a pre-season kick-about at Boston, or promoted by Christmas as we see off a much-changed Peterborough side a couple of weeks later. Then that first game of the 2025/26 campaign will be upon us. Instant judgements and reactions will be made in haste, with little consideration for the 45 games still to come.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. But things wouldn't feel right any other way. We'd be out of our comfort zone. We require that neverending cycle of rumours, dreams, fears, praise, and annoyance to get us through the footballing drought that mid-year brings.

So here's to the next rumour that we'll all cling onto. How 'X' will fit into our side and turn us into world beaters when he joins. And don't pretend we don't all do that to some degree or another. Because, secretly, we love it. Or loathe it. Or both?