Cod Almighty | Diary

Bulletproof Boy Scouts

20 July 2026

Miss Guest Diary writes: I hadn't intended to stay up and watch the England game on Saturday. A relatively meaningless contest finishing after midnight? Why bother? But bother I did, along with 17 million others, according to a report I saw, and a jolly good watch it was. The motivations for bothering were undoubtedly many and varied – mine was simply to see Dean Henderson playing. Have Town fans ever before had – and will they ever get again – the opportunity to see someone who has played for Town feature in the World Cup Finals? Not just played for Town, but made his football league debut with us. Despite the scoreline, I think Henderson did fine: a couple of important saves in the first half, and some of the goals conceded looked pretty unstoppable. But how many from the back of the Pontoon gang were chanting our mantra of "four to draw" as the goals went in? 

Also pleasing to see was Ivan Toney getting a chance to start a game – I really felt for him only getting a minute or two to show what he could do in the doomed semi-final. Unfortunately, from Saturday's game it seems his speciality is Lunding about – a term coined many years ago after seeing Gary Lund playing for Notts County and innocently asking Mr B whether Lund had a special decoy role as he seemed to spend a lot of time near the action but not really involved.

Town had a game on Saturday too, against Ukrainian side FC Zorya Luhansk, which ended 1-1 courtesy of the first of the season from the Wolds Panther. It was dubbed as a behind-closed-doors friendly though that's a bit of a misnomer as it was available to stream on Mariners TV. And it doesn't seem to have been that friendly – both Catchpole and Andrews were taken off during the first half after receiving knocks and Staunton went off in the second half with a shoulder injury. And, surprisingly, Shaun Pearson ended up playing in defence. There's no news on who Pearson replaced, or why he was needed, also where was Cam Gardner – not even listed as a sub. It's all a bit concerning.

With only three weeks until Town's first competitive game, the squad still feels very light, especially if any of the knocks picked up by players on Saturday prove serious. If Town don't sign any new players before the pre-season game against Hartlepool next weekend, then there are going to be a lot of unhappy Town fans speculating about the reasons. From the playing budget being too small, the club being too far from anywhere, having an old-fashioned stadium and sub-standard training facilities, to that old chestnut "lack of ambishun". Let's hope Town forestall this by announcing at least a couple of signings, probably just after this diary goes live.

Oh yes, the World Cup Final. A predictably lacklustre match unnecessarily prolonged by pre-match and half-time shenanigans. Bravo to the BBC for showing their own promo film at half time, and to Wayne Rooney for speaking his mind about the nonsense. The tournament overall was more enjoyable than anticipated but there are a lot of things I won't miss, such as kick-off countdowns, hydration breaks, inconsistent use of VAR, tannoy announcements of player bookings, in-game rock & pop music, missing live action through too many meaningless action replays, cutaways to random 'celebrities' in the crowd and seeing Infantino's mug at nearly every game. At least Argentina lost.