Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Tuesday 6 July 2010

6 July 2010

Idle Diary writes: "The inquest continues," declares the Sport Grimsby website. At last! The Riby Square Rag is charging its journalists to get out there and provide some well-researched and insightful analysis on a footballing matter that is close to the hearts of North East Lincolnshire! Yes! England's failure at the World Cup! Er, hang on. England?

Why haven't Town had this sort of high-level analysis over the years? If you want to define failure then look no further than the past few seasons of Grimsby Town FC, culminating in the recent relegation, a big bad failure of the massivest kind. It's the sort of fucked-up situation that needs in-depth analysis driven by proper probing and pertinent questioning. But you know how it is with local papers: do a little prodding but not too much, otherwise the club will take away your precious access to the players, and no access to players means watching Mariners World to recycle interview material in your back pages, boo hoo hoo.

Was England's performance at the World Cup really a failure? Sections of the Cod Almighty team go into these Major International Tournament Things with a strong sense of realism, perhaps instilled by recent seasons supporting Town. We know Match of the Day just shows the highlights (ie. the good bits), we know the England players struggle to pass the ball about, we know it's those Foreign Types that do the ticky-tacky, and we go into these summers expecting no goals, no wins, and no points. Anything else? Bonus. Just accept that the England national team aren't as good as the media-fuelled speculation leads you to believe. Believe England are great and can win the World Cup? You are a sucker, drinking from Rupert Murdoch's organs.

Yeah, we admit it. We were suckers too once upon a time.