Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Monday 31 October 2011

31 October 2011

Miss Guest Diary writes: Rather appropriately for Hallowe'en, I'm starting to feel a little spooked by Town's recent results. In each of the last three home games I have missed, Town have scored five goals. So what, I hear you say; lots of other people missed those games too - but are those people season ticket holders of long standing? For the Alfreton game I had another engagement. The Barrow game was on a Tuesday, and I have decided not to attend any midweek games this season. But Saturday's game against Ashington was different. I was free and had committed myself to go. But then I started to read emails and Tweets which indicated nervousness among Town fans about a possible defeat to this team from several divisions below us. So I decided to stay away, jokingly saying to my partner that Town would definitely win and score five as a consequence.

Football seems to be such a superstitious world - the lucky underpants, the favourite pre-match routine - that it is easy to get sucked in. My partner, usually the most balanced and logical person I know, once wore the same set of clothes to every game for a whole season, and woe betide me if I didn't manage to get them washed between Saturday and Tuesday fixtures. Fortunately, that little quirk seems to have disappeared along with Town's League status. I personally don't indulge in magical thinking: I know that my presence or absence at a football match, or what I wear while I am there, can have no influence on the outcome, but now... I'm simply glad that Town have been drawn away at Port Vale in the next round so I don't have to make any difficult decisions.

There is an abundance of Town-related stories in today's Grimsby Telegraph: a match report, Shorty praising the performance of the youngsters in the team, interviews with Thanoj and Southwell about the magic of the cup and some flimflam about getting money from the Ryan Bennett sell-on clause should he ever be transferred for big money (yawn).

But the one that caught my eye was a report of someone receiving a football banning order, which says Town are "ranked eighth in the league table of clubs with the highest number of football banning orders". I wanted to see this as a good thing - that local miscreants are being punished - but comparing the average Town gate with that of most professional clubs must surely mean it's a really bad thing. Out of curiosity I went in search of this league table. The only one I could find dated from 10 November 2010 and had Town in 10th place with 76 banning orders; the top club had 125. No prizes for guessing which club that was. This is one league I certainly wouldn't mind Town getting relegated from.

Talking of relegation, I see that the game against Lincoln at Sincil Bank on Boxing Day has been moved to a 1pm kick-off "on police advice". I never really understand the purpose of this - OK, there's less time to misbehave before the game but, given that most pubs seem to open all day, it just increases the time available afterwards, with the outcome of the game thrown into the mix.

I need to get off now and buy some sweets to placate the trick or treaters tonight, or I'll have to hide in my top-floor TV room with the lights dimmed. Hmm, maybe I'll just do that anyway and eat all the sweets myself.