Cod Almighty | Diary

A half-time break that lasts three days

1 May 2015

Retro Diary writes: Oh my god, I can’t take it. Firstly, thank you Nathan Arnold and a marvellous defence, and thank you ref. Bias against a horrible set of wind-up merchants is always fair in my book. I would love to spend all day talking about Town, but I can’t for fear of angering the gods, and to avoid stress. Even I can’t cope with a half-time break that lasts three days.

I’ll try to think about something else today. But if that little light in my brain that says ‘football’ won’t go out and starts reminding me of Gateshead, or Bristol Rovers’ utter dominance over Forest Green, or if I should wake up in the night contemplating a penalty shoot-out at Wembley having had our keeper sent off for pushing someone over, I’ll try to deflect the stress by concentrating on matters elsewhere in the football pyramid. So to start with, let’s just spare a thought for North Ferriby United. Only joking.

No, I really can’t talk about Town – it’s only half time. So who, apart from us, is having footy-related kittens this week?

At the top of the Premiership, well actually I don’t give a stuff, because that’s not real football. I don’t even care that much about the bottom of the Premier, especially now Hull have as good as escaped, although I’m sure we will have to endure a good deal more of it yet on ‘Radiur’umbersard’.

There is, though I hate to admit it, an element of ‘there goes us’ about Hull, which you just have to respect. They may be the old fishing rivals but the KC’s prawn cocktail count is refreshingly low, which makes them the sort of upstarts you would usually want to hang around up there. It’s very difficult to come to terms with. After beating Palace, Steve Bruce said ‘we’ve given wasselves a chance’, which I assume is something like ‘keeping us shape’, but against better opposition.

There were emotional scenes at Bournemouth on Monday night, and nobody could begrudge them their celebration. In 1998 Town and Bournemouth made history on the same day in front of 62,432, as both sets of fans watched their team play at the home of football for the very first time. I think it’s fair to say that after Monday they’ve possibly now forgiven us for Wayne’s golden flickette. The beauty of their success is that if the Premiership isn’t too good for bloody Bournemouth, it’s certainly not too good for us. It makes you think that there is some point to this whole mysterious adventure after all.

The nadir from which Bournemouth’s meteoric rise began was 2008-9, surely the most horrible season the fourth division has ever known. In that year, Luton were docked 30 points from which they didn’t recover, making them play an entire season of completely futile football. Rotherham and Bournemouth were docked 17 points each for identical crimes – Rotherham’s deduction made them miss out on the play-offs, which was suitable punishment, whilst Bournemouth’s seventeen points would have seen them finish in mid-table, meaning that it wasn’t any punishment at all.

Chester, who were fighting against relegation with Town, had their wages paid by the league giving them an unfair advantage, and despite having a transfer embargo were mysteriously allowed to sign a goalkeeper. Accrington Stanley had four players banned for match-fixing in a scandal which also drew in Bury and Chester. The Accrington home defeat to Chester that season appeared bizarrely soft, although evidence was lacking to do anything about it. Bournemouth saved themselves from relegation in their last home game against Town, a match we finished with nine men, Boshell and Widdowson having been sent off.

This all ended up in the most contrived league table of modern times, in which Town would have been relegated out of the league were it not for Luton’s points deduction. Frankly, the league should be ashamed of 2008-9. Town certainly should be, and hopefully we won’t see anything like it again. Bournemouth, however, have never looked back.

Moving on. If we can think about anything except events at Blundell Park on Sunday, we may notice that in the third flight, we need either Preston or Yeovil to win. Of course I don’t need to tell you why, as the fact that you’re reading Cod Almighty makes you a de facto detester of all things franchise. At the bottom, we get into the realms of teams we could be playing next year. Yeovil are already down, and after that it’s three from six, including Notts County and Coventry. A trip to the Ricoh would certainly be nice in August, but let’s not think about that in any way – fate is not forgiving.

What we can say is that we won’t be playing either Burton Albion or Shrewsbury, who have been promoted from the fourth division. Sadly I won’t be getting a chance, then, to give Burton that bit of their net back.

Which brings us to poor old Tranmere. Ooooh dear. How could one forget Tranmere and their pompous waving fans back in 2004. They are just about to enter the deluded ‘do you know who we are?’ stage, before the realisation that they’re going to be beaten by teams they can’t find on the map and finish eleventh. I’m afraid that as far as Town are concerned the milk of human kindness is running at a very low ebb on that one. Just a little health warning – failure to breathe whilst laughing can cause death. And if there’s anything funnier than Tranmere waving themselves out of the league, it’s Town passing them the other way – that would make it worth going up on its own (which, for walls with ears, we are not saying we will do).

Assuming the worst and Bristol Rovers ease their way casually to promotion (I don’t think that is technically tempting fate…), next year we will have Barrow, and Cooky, back. Boston are in the play-offs, so they could also get a stab at their first ever victory against us next year. From Conference South we will welcome champions Bromley, heralding another one of those trips to north Kent that we love so much.

Coolly-named Whitehawk are in the play-offs in Conference South, although surely Scott Neilson will have moved on by August. Concord Rangers of Canvey Island, the only English team to be named after a beach, have narrowly missed out on a play-off spot, so cannot now provide us (or Tranmere Wavers) with a ‘new low’, or yet another trip to the anonymous wastes of the outer Thames.

Or hopefully, this will all be irrelevant. Come on Town FFS. We’ll have another couple of those please Nathan, and a good deal of celestial help would be nice. By the way, Telegraph, James McKeown should have been sent off and they should have had a penalty. For some reason you don’t mention it at all.

Now stop reading and start praying. UTM.