Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Tuesday 16 August 2011

16 August 2011

I don't feel particularly proud or comfortable about using the 'no disrespect' tag about another club, but I'm going to do it anyway. No disrespect to our opposition tonight but Braintree Town versus Grimsby Town is a fixture I thought I'd never see - unless it happened in the FA Cup or something like that. The fact that it is occurring is the result of Braintree's remarkable and highly commendable rise through the non-League pyramid system and Town's utter shitness in everything they've done since the turn of the century.

What annoys your West Yorkshire Diary most about this sort of fixture is that it makes me look at where it all went wrong, why nothing has gone right since and how long it's going to continue like this - which, if you're a Braintree Town supporter, must really frustrate you. After all, we as Town fans have been there ourselves when the likes of Manchester City and Birmingham City continually scratched their heads and wondered why they found themselves playing 'the likes of' Grimsby on a cold, wet and windy Tuesday night at Blundell Park. There was a part of me that was motivated by that attitude but also a part that never understood why those massive clubs just couldn't accept that we earned the right to play them twice a season based on some fundamental principles such as teamwork, effort, skill and good management - both on and off the pitch.

Braintree manager Alan Devonshire is absolutely right in his assertion that "it's games like these that everyone wanted when the team got promotion", and you don't have to trouble yourself too much to acknowledge that it's games like these that no-one in Grimsby wanted when our team got relegated. If Shouty and Shorty can get the Town players in the right frame of mind for Tuesday night games against the sort of opposition that none of us really know that much about, then we might get somewhere. Pre-season suggested that we were making progress on that front, but losing to Fleetwood on Saturday harmed some of that confidence we had allowed to build up over the last couple of months.

It appears it's Shorty's turn to speak to the press this week about team matters as Shouty gives his vocal cords a well-earned rest - well, apart from demonstrating his knowledge of the Buckley years in a Telegraph piece about looking to the future. Shorty says Church and Silk are definitely out of contention tonight and it's unlikely that Shaun 'Person' Pearson or Kempo will be brought back in given that they're a little bit short of match sharpness and the management duo were relatively satisfied with Garner's and I'Anson's performances at the weekend.

If you are going to the match tonight you'll be stood in the joyfully named 'Quag End' of the ground. Apparently they don't bother with segregation normally but the local police are on a heightened state of alert following the riots last week and someone's obviously shown them the tapes of Town fans at Burton. To get the lowdown on everything about this game just read Cod Almighty's pre-match factfile.

I do not like this bottom-of-the-Conference position, so as soon as we can pick up some points and start to move upwards I'll be happy. I don't think a hard-fought draw will be a disaster tonight because we all know from previous experience that a lot worse can happen. Braintree will be excited about upsetting the odds - and good on 'em. We should be excited about winning a game of football and getting the fans to believe in the work ethic that Shorty and Shouty are trying to promote within the club.