Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Thursday 26 May 2011

26 May 2011

Volcanic ash is threatening my imminent holiday, there's too much fucking wind and there's a distinct lack of that lovely summery weather we had for about five minutes a few weekends ago; all this, coupled with being at work and it being a Thursday, and your Part Time Diary could be forgiven for lashing out at our appallingly run football club, our self-contradicting, cliché-spouting chairman and the error-strewn superb new official website which reports every error-strewn action by our appallingly run football club. It would be an entirely appropriate course of action in fact. But then again, I do like supporting Grimsby Town.

Grimsby can be infuriating when they concede stupid late goals, and they can be humiliating when they get stuffed at home, but that just makes it better when they win. I like supporting a proper team, my local team. I'd rather spend 90 minutes freezing my bollocks off at Blundell Park watching some, let's be honest, pretty horrendous football than watch a Liverpool or a Manchester United in the pub every other Sunday and pretend that I have a connection with them because I went once and I have a shirt. Grimsby is an identity and I'm proud of it; I like singing about fish. I like telling people I'm a Grimsby fan. I like the 'oh, you do know about football and you're not a cunt' look that you get from other like-minded, discerning fans of lower-level, non-corporate local football teams.

I feel privileged to have seen my team at both Wembleys and at the Millennium Stadium, and it means more than watching them at Wembley in the pub like so many Man Utd fans will be on Saturday. They can keep their European Cup final against Barcelona, because our Football League Trophy final against Bournemouth meant so much more; and they won't get a golden goal or have Harry Haddocks waving about.

AFC Wimbledon winning the play-offs was great the other day. They deserved to go up. They deserve to keep going up until they get back to the level they were at before being stolen in order to aid a supermarket development project. They've got proper fans, fans that decided against supporting a team miles away and built the one they had back up. There are a lot of people in Grimsby that decided to support the team miles away, but there are enough that didn't, and I'm happy to be a Grimsby fan.

I hate that the club is in the Conference and that we keep getting worse and worse. I wish I got to watch us play at the grounds we used to in the not-so-old days and I hope one day we will again. I don't like a lot of aspects about how the club is run - they're discussed on here daily - but I really do love the club. I wouldn't change my team for the world. Grimsby certainly isn't a team you'd pick unless you're from Grimsby, and I like that. Football should be about identities: there's a tribal element to it. That's why we have rivalries and that's why it's important to protect the identities of clubs like Wimbledon. Congratulations and good luck to them. I hope we join them next year; but if not I'll still be a Grimsby fan and so will you and I'm fine with that.

What's that? They've sacked the scouting network? Oh for fuck's sake Town; and that was going really well too.