Cod Almighty | Diary

Far from bliss

20 August 2013

"I must apologise that we didn't get the win last Saturday. Welling are the kind of team we really need to be beating if we are to get where we want to be. Admittedly, they are a decent side and really gave us the runaround in the second half."

That is, as nearly as your Middle-Aged Diary can recall it (my 'filing system' having let me down), a direct quote from the sports pages of a local paper. Not August, but early September, after six rather than three games had been played. One word has been changed. For Welling, read Grimsby. The quote was from the column of the Birmingham captain the week after Dave Gilbert secured us a point at St Andrews, on 18 September 1993. The Electronic Fishcake feature 'No disrespect to the likes of Grimsby' was born of such ignorance.

Why, now that the boot is on the other foot, must so many Town fans mimic it?

The Sheffield derby had always puzzled me. With most intra-city rivalries, there is a clear sense of the religious, class or footballing traditions that fuel them. My perception was that Wednesday were the side that prided itself on its style of play, and, having known a couple of likeable Owls, I was happy enough to congratulate them on their successes or, more frequently, commiserate their failures.

However, a Sheffield-based member of the CA team has always expressed, forcefully, the opposite sentiment. Thinking there was some historic undercurrent I was unaware of, I asked him about it. The reason for his extreme hostility to Wednesday is simply the attitude of their supporters when they found themselves in the third, even the second, flight. Wednesday, the ignorati of the internet expounded, were just too MASSIVE to be in a league ('tinpot' or otherwise) that also held such Lilliputians as Port Vale and Grimsby.

'Ignorance' is the right word, in both its literal and colloquial senses. Ignorant literally, because we cannot know, three games in, just how good Welling are. We do know that last season they gave us one of our toughest, most rewarding matches. The league table never lies, they say – but that is not to say that in August it imparts much truth either. Ignorant colloquially, because of the attitude that some of our competitors are beneath our attention. In 1993, such ignorance was confined to local spaces, heard only by those for whom the remarks were intended. Twenty years later, they echo across the social media with an ugly clang. 

Grimsby finished the 1993-94 season in 16th, a poor enough return, to those in the know, for a squad that featured John McDermott, Gary Croft, Paul Futcher, Mark Lever, Peter Handyside, Paul Groves, Jim Dobbin, Gary Childs, Dave Gilbert, Tony Ford, Neil Woods, Tony Rees and Clive Mendonca. Birmingham were relegated. Whether that undermines or reinforces my argument I'll leave to you.