Cod Almighty | Diary

I like toast and jam

9 December 2013

Miss Guest Diary writes: So what happened to that big money Premiership tie Town were due to get if they beat Northampton on Saturday? Did anyone really think it would happen? I was confidently expecting us to get drawn away at Macclesfield or, even worse, MK Dons, which I'd be forced to boycott as a protest against franchise football. Compared to that, drawing Huddersfield, a Championship side, at Blundell Park seems like a really good outcome.

But let's not get too far ahead of things: there's a lot of football to be played between now and the FA Cup third round in January. Paul Hurst wants the team to concentrate on what he has described as Town's "bread and butter": tomorrow's game against Welling. He is hoping for a performance from the team and support from the fans to match Saturday's. I think he might struggle to get the latter, not just because extra games so close to Christmas aren't easy for everyone to afford, but also because the chopping and changing of fixtures can make it impossible for even the diehard fans to get to every game.

My partner and I are in the unfortunate position of having to miss tomorrow's, so we are treating ourselves to a trip 'down south' to take in the Trophy game against Barnet on Saturday. Not something Edgar Davids will be able to do following his sending off against Dartford at the weekend. I do hope there won't be any more talk of not wanting to win this match. I find it utterly incomprehensible that someone can call themselves a Town fan and then say they want the team to lose. If being a League club trumps everything else, maybe they should just sod off and 'support' Scunthorpe.

In researching our route to Barnet, I discovered that they don't actually play in Barnet any more. Weirdly, the Hive, as their new ground is called, is in Edgware and only a few hundred yards from where I was born. Weirder still, I realised I have seen the ground when travelling on a Jubilee Line train to Stanmore – and made the incorrect assumption that it might be the training ground for one of the London Premier League clubs. Oops.

Finally, another match coming up in December is the Boxing Day fixture at Lincoln, for which the club have already announced the ticket arrangements. A repeat of last year for atmosphere and support is something Paul Hurst definitely can count on.