Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Monday 8 October 2012

8 October 2012

Miss Guest Diary writes: My partner and I got our first Town season tickets in '98, which was around the time we met the group of friends who would go on to found Cod Almighty. It was also when the tradition began of meeting in The Rutland Arms before a Saturday home game. Over the years some of the faces have changed, but there has always been a lively group to meet up with. Some weeks the numbers have swelled to over a dozen, some weeks it has been down to the core half dozen. But always it has been a bright spot; something extra to look forward to on matchdays in times of relegations, manager sackings, Fentydome nonsense and awful Town performances. But no longer.

The rot set in towards the end of last season when even those with season tickets didn't turn up every week, then didn't renew their season tickets. Now on a Saturday we are lucky if there are one or two others in The Rutland. This has diminished the Blundell Park experience even when Town have been playing well, but when, as on Saturday, their performance is less than satisfactory, it's much worse. I fear that, to slightly misquote The Beatles: it's going to be a long, cold, lonely winter.

Shouty pulled no punches in his post-match interview, describing the performance as "poor from start to finish" and "all over the place" and criticising the attitude and tempo and the "schoolboy defending". More worrying is that, when asked by John Tondeur how Town might turn things around against Alfreton tomorrow, Shouty's only suggestion was "hard work and a good attitude". A generous person might suggest that the management are keeping their tactical cards close to their chest, but a cynic like me suggests that they simply haven't got a clue.

I won't be going along to find out for myself, but I bet that Pat Doughty, September's fan of the month, will be there. The fans area of the NSNOS is one I hadn't visited before, but it seems like a nice idea so I thought I'd take a look around. The page has a number of pictures with titles such as 'Junior Fans', 'Last Match' and 'Merchandise' but, unfortunately (or should that be unsurprisingly), none of the links worked and they all had the same caption: "Young people support their local community through the club." Oh well, they say it's the thought that counts.

Following Nigel Lowther's article last week in the Cleethorpes Chronicle, which he kindly allowed Cod Almighty to publish online, the Grimsby Telegraph has now waded into the debate. Although headed up as the editor's opinion, the piece talks about a new stadium "being in everyone's interests" as if this were a fact. It isn't: I love Blundell Park and don't want to watch Town anywhere else. And, by the way, I'm not interested in the opinion of anyone, especially a newspaper editor, who mixes up the words 'allude' and 'elude'.

And now the draw has been made for the fourth qualifying round of the FA Cup on 20 October. The prospect fills me with so much inertia that I can barely type the words: Kidderminster Harriers at home. But I dare say we'll be there, after having spent a solitary hour in The Rutland like Mr & Mrs Billy-no-mates.