Cod Almighty | Diary

You're great like the Wall of China

12 March 2015

Well, at least it's not just people in favour of Town's new stadium who talk gibberish.

Good day, and welcome to Thursday with your original/regular Diary. If anyone from Argos Financial Services is reading, I still don't have an Argos Card, you are incorrectly using my email address for an account held by someone else, for the 214th time will you please stop emailing me.

There's knack all going on this week, hence today's remarkable news that Jack Mackreth thinks Town will make it into the play-offs. We should bleedin' well think so too. Kinell! Is that the sort of expectation management that's par for the Mariners' course these days? Meanwhile, is it officially jesters at Chester now, or is that still to be confirmed? Hopefully Retro Diary can fill you in tomorrow.

So I'm going to start thinking about my Great GY XI. Get on and get yours done next. Remember, it's for the anthology that we're putting together with the Mariners Trust. You need to pick your best GTFC players from 1971 to 2002. You've got until 1 April. This is massive.

I guess there wouldn't be much point telling you why I think Clive Mendonca, John McDermott and Ivano Bonetti were great, because the answer would likely be the same as why everyone else thinks they were great. Better, if not exactly logical, to confess that in my first full season watching GTFC I decided Kevin Kilmore was my goalscoring superstar hero, while Kevin Drinkell was just OK. I know. What's the explanation? I was about seven years old. That's all.

For similarly irrational, albeit slightly less infantile, reasons, I'd find it hard to complete my XI without making room somehow for Georges Santos. No, he didn't have Groves' graft, Cockerill's cunning or Waters' wiles. But he entertained me – at a time when entertainment was at a premium. True, coming on as a late sub, almost breaking the legs of three Reading players, and being lucky to escape red cards every time may not be the stuff dreams are made of. But sometimes these things just stick in the mind.

Why? Because as proper fans know, and plastic fans will never understand, the game is about far more than just winning games and what league you're in. It is about mud, beer, farce and anger. It is about long journeys, old friends, new friends, chance meetings, chip butties, bitterness and terror. It is about irretrievable breakdowns of every kind, about occasional delight, and about gallows humour. In my case, it is also about being stuck between stations on a motionless tube train after Wembley '98 for ages and ages while absolutely busting for a wee.

For me, then, perhaps a Great GY XI isn't just about the best players. It's about the memorable ones too – the ones who somehow embody the experience of supporting our much-relegated, much-promoted club in all its chaos and wonder and ridiculousness and delight and humiliation and glory.

So, that'll be Gallimore at left-back...