Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Wednesday 30 July 2008

30 July 2008

Town won last night, the supporters' trust has stopped moaning, asked for help and got it, and the surveyor has finally agreed that your Guest Diarist's 160-year-old enormously tall chimney stack really did get twisted in the earthquake. Yee ha! Well, perhaps I shouldn't quite go that strong, but if you don't have just the tiniest moment of celebration when things go right you can end up never celebrating anything. You see, that's where Mr Brown went wrong - he never bothered with a little jig after he rescued the country from foot and mouth last summer. He's got nowt to celebrate now, that's for sure (said this "sarcastic professional lefty-cum-capitalist scumbag"). Anonymous messageboard posters - where would we be without them?

As ever with a pre-season game it is hard to judge performance and prospects. Both Lincoln and Town had players missing, but at least our lads had a morning respite so were not completely knackered before they started. Mr Watkiss(es) said things had gone much better; the back four had a shape and it was pleasing, I'm told, to see Heywood mentoring Bennett; Taylor's pace had caused problems and Peter Bore scored a goal. In fact Town made a lot of chances throughout the game, and our back four looked strong and capable. We won, we kept a clean sheet against a local rival and no-one got hurt.

Tonight, Mr Watkiss(es) tells us in a freebie Mariners World interview, a young Town team will take on Eastwood Town at their place. Three pro players, being "Jarmo, Normo and Birdy", will get a game supplemented by the even youthier yoof. But the truest test, I suspect, will come on Saturday when the first team travel to Scunthorpe for the final pre-season game. Town need to play well and stay injury free.

The Telewag reports that there is optimism that Peter Till might make the game, which has to be yet more good news on this good news day. If we beat the Iron we might even start humming Hedgehoppers Anonymous's greatest hit. Although if you get past the hook line, it's all a bit gloomy, that song, with its "Someone's found a way to give/The rotting dead a will to live". Just shows it's not what you sing, it's the way that you sing it. I'd better stop this paragraph before I start an unfortunate metaphor methinks.

It was good to read that the supporters' trust has managed to spring back into life after a slightly moribund period. Some new faces around, they say, a revamp of the website promised (I hope you get rid of that weird font, folks) and a telling final paragraph: "When the next crisis happens, we don't want to be scrambling to set up an organisation to bring the club back from the brink. We want it to already be in place. That's why the Supporters Trust needs to not just survive, but to flourish and become a force to be reckoned with." The meeting is at the Imp on Thursday 7 August at 7pm. Try and make it, eh? See yer.