Cod Almighty | Diary

Are you, or have you ever been, or have you ever associated with, a fanzine writer?

9 June 2015

We have one bit of news, and one rumour. The rumour will no doubt become fact the moment this diary is live, so it's in everyone's interest that Middle-Aged Diary gets on with it. The name Omar Bogle is sure to boost shirt sales should it be true that Town have had an offer for him accepted.

The news is that Lee Mullen will be joining the Grimsby Town board, subject to passing the fit-and-proper persons test (and as one of those tests ought to be proving oneself a genuine fan, that should be a formality). Hats off to the SNOS for not prefixing Lee's name with 'Eurolottery millionaire'. I am yet to meet anyone who has acquired a fortune through their own unaided hard work, without help at a minimum from a state-funded education system and infrastructure, so why should we imply that jackpot winners are uniquely lucky to be rich?

Operation Promotion appears to be striding on well enough that it can do without us for a moment, though I do recommend you read to the bottom of this interview with Nigel Lowther for the inside story of the original Harry. It's an entertaining read, and an example of how the enthusiasm the Mariners Trust is currently harnessing can turn an idle quip into what has become an unfailing (though occasionally flaccid) symbol of what is best about being a Grimsby fan.

Antony Chapman has been in touch, not to reassure us that no money changed hands in his dealings with a previous FIFA president, but to add to the praise for Retro Diary and to ask: "Why don't you put together a book 'The Best of Cod Almighty' in time for Christmas, proceeds to the Mariners Trust." It's funny you should say that, Antony...

Middle-Aged Diary had been given a leave of absence from diary duties for a while to spend some time compiling and editing some of the best writing about the Mariners, not just from Cod Almighty but from all the local fanzines dating back to Sing When We're Fishing, some articles that have made it into the national media, and the increasingly excellent matchday programme, The Mariner. In addition, we've several pieces written especially for the book. We'll also publish in it the results of the recent Great Grimsby XI poll, about which I was trying your patience with great frequency in the spring. (So that's why they said I could take a break.)

The book has a working title: We are Town: Three decades of writing about Grimsby. It covers the years from the return of Matt Tees and the arrival of Lawrie McMenemy to 2001-02, the season of those three streaky, freaky peaks: 24 hours on top of the Football League, a win at Anfield and relegation avoided with a match to spare. There are some very good years in there, but also some grim ones. If the content selected for inclusion is perhaps a bit more celebratory than is typical for a fanzine, there are times when what we are celebrating is our own endurance.

Compiling the book has been thoroughly enjoyable. As an inveterate reader of anything Town-related, I'd thought I had a pretty comprehensive knowledge of the possible source material, and it has indeed been a pleasure to reacquaint myself with it. But I've also found out how much I didn't know. We all express our fascination with the Mariners in different ways, as our talents take us, and I've come upon some very talented writers.

That means that the book won't purely be about football. Some of the best writing puts the club clearly in the context of individual lives and the wider community. Jack Johnson touches on this in When Saturday Comes; no tribute to Joe Waters is complete without remembering the efforts Town fans took to bring him to Blundell Park. With that in mind, I hope it isn't too presumptuous to link the book with Operation Promotion. Certainly all proceeds will go to the Mariners Trust.

We are Town has been lubricated by complete goodwill. We've been dealing with the authors and editors of different fanzines and blogs, the local media and of course the Trust. I'm yet to meet anyone who has said 'No'. Which is just as well as I'm about to ask you a favour.

If you took advantage of the opportunity to tell us about your votes in the Great Grimsby XI Poll, or even tell us a bit of your life story, you should be aware you may find yourself featuring in We are Town. I hope you'll trust us that we are doing that because the stories you told us are worth printing.

Apart from that, we are making every effort to track down every author of every article we plan to include in We are Town. We have drawn a blank so far on these names though: John Krispinussen, Lloyd Wright, Mike Baker, Neil Wood, Pete Conboy, Rich Plowes and Ron Counte. There's also someone who worked for the BBC and wrote for Sing When We're Fishing about discussing Town on the West Bank back around 1992 and a soldier who wrote in the newsletter It's a Grim Exile about serving in the first Gulf war during the 1991-92 season. So if you are one of those authors, or you can put us in touch with any of them, we'd love to hear from you.