Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Tuesday 11 December 2012

11 December 2012

The experience of living in Manchester in derby week has brought to mind a dialogue from Northern Ireland in the 1970s:

"What religion are you?"
"I'm Jewish."
"Ah, but are you a Catholic Jew or a Protestant Jew?"

Telling people you support Grimsby in a city with two of the most prosperous clubs in Europe does run the risk of having people feel you are being evasive or frivolous. While we are dealing with sectarian rivalries, it's worth remembering that the name 'Old Firm' for the most bitter of British rivalries was actually bestowed on the two Glasgow clubs by the rest of Scotland, denoting the exclusivity and mutual profitability of that hostility, and helping maintain the Celtic-Rangers duopoly. If there is a point to this rambling (other than filling space: the reserve fixture scheduled for this afternoon against Hull has been postponed, and that is the news) it is to distinguish between different types of antipathy towards teams.

There are good honest local derbies, which we would miss if the other club vanished. These need to be bilateral, with equality of feeling on both sides, maintained through history and sustained by reasonably equal status. Few things are worse in football than a supporter of your supposedly hated rivals congratulating you on your team's success, with a benign "it's good for the area". Envying much bigger teams is just sad. Our relationship with Hull - whose supporters have never seemed to care about us, even when we were two divisions higher - is a rather unusual one.

Then there is a spectrum of footballing dishonour. No-one will miss Bastard Franchise Scum when they go (and it is a mark of how tin-eared they remain that they continue to bear the mark of their shame by retaining the nickname Dons), a team with no right to exist. Just above that are clubs whose commercial practices are so egregious that you feel sorry for those obliged to support them. Coincidentally, many of these are clubs which have had an association with Ken Bates.

The other day, I casually remarked to my son: "Any day that Chelsea lose is a good day for football", whereupon he shot back with: "But what if they lost to MK Dons?" He supports City, and it is the experience of having to visit their club shop last week to buy Christmas presents, and then carry around a plastic bag with the evidence for the rest of the day, that sent me on this train of associations. He once asked me who I thought he should want to win when United played Chelsea. My stock fantasy for these situations is a 0-0 which that brings disgrace and points deductions on both teams (and to be fair, the clubs often meet me halfway).

It is tempting to wish such a fate on Newport and Luton tonight, but of course they are in another rank not of hostility but of temporary rivalry. The supporters of both teams have had a lot to put up with (far more than us) over recent years. Let's hope for a decent game, for their sakes, and that we will regain the top spot by our own efforts, should the need arise.