Cod Almighty | Diary

Give my regards to Broad

6 August 2015

Hello and welcome, Devon Diary here for the very first time, and I sincerely hope you dig what I scribble every Thursday. My credentials? I was born in Croft Baker and my first football boots were bought from Harry Wainman's on Freemo. Now I'm exiled in foreign parts, namely Chudleigh in Devon.

I'm honoured to be writing for Cod Almighty, having read it since 2002-ish, and having worn many of the T-shirts too, except the Mike Newell one, of course. 'Grimsby is not in Yorkshire' is a favourite, followed by the yellow Super Clive shirt. A Charlton fan offered to buy mine when I was out in Bristol one night but I declined as it was pissing it down and I was running to the Bunch of Grapes for shelter. Top boozer.

I was wondering how to kick off my first diary entry and settled on the questions posed recently by the excellent CodPod podcast: what was your first Town game and what's your favourite kit? My first game was at home to Crewe Alexandra in April 1978 and I remember my dad buying me a copy of The Mariner which declared "100 years of football". That kind of things sticks in your mind I guess; that and the advertising board for Norris the Rubberman. The game was a draw: here's some more about it.

My favourite kit? I'm going to plump for the away kit which Town played in with Ivano Bonetti in the side, the one that looked like a Bologna kit, or maybe the shirts that the entertainments staff at Park Dean holiday parks wear. Red and blue broad stripes/panels, and ever so smart. I'd love to see a return of that strip.

Anyway, I digress. The season starts this weekend and we will at last get a chance to see the new squad kick a ball in anger when they travel to Kidderminster. What do we know about them? Former Harrier Josh Gowling probably knows them better than anyone at Town, having swapped Aggborough for Blundell Park earlier this year. But as I left it far too late to ask him any questions, we'll just have to presume that Josh and Captain Hursts have spent many an hour in the BP war room plotting their demise, pushing wave after wave of black and white striped Subbuteo players across the baize pitch before settling on a foolproof 4-4-2 with Amond and Arnold up front to start.

(I was favouring JP to start with Podge, but it seems as though he has stomach gyp to accompany Marshall's leg twinge.)

Thanks to Google, Wikipedia, Kidderminster's Twitter account and the magnificent organ which is the Worcester News, I know that the Carpetbaggers are coached by Tim Flowers, so their new goalie Dean Snedker is probably pretty decent. Apart from that there's not too much to go on, except for West Brom's Andre Wright, who joined yesterday – he scored a lot for their under-18s but hasn't played for the first team yet. Of course, some players left over the summer and some other new ones signed, but there are no names I recognise as being anything to shout home. The wonderful Too Good To Go Down blog reckons they'll finish 22nd and it's difficult to argue with that.

The Harriers' pre-season has been a little underwhelming too, but it's all relative, isn't it? I would have probably said the same about ours last year but we've been spoilt over the last month with Operation Promotion and nine wins against some decent opposition. Flowers told the Worcester News earlier this week that "we'll be giving 100 per cent", so maybe a mediocre squad is enough if every other team is only playing at 40 to 60 per cent of their potential. A hundred per cent? Hmmm, it might just work, you know. This is the kind of radical thinking you get with an ex-England legend on the staff. He won the Premier League too, don't you know?

I honestly hope Kiddie do okay this year. They're a nice club and one that the locals should get behind rather than being tempted by the bright lights of Shrewsbury, Hereford and Wolverhampton. But things aren't looking great. Like a lot of lower-league clubs, they're financially troubled and working on a much reduced budget for 2015-16. So considering they had a pretty poor season last year – apart from beating us at Blundell Park in November – they shouldn't pose too much of a problem.

I always worry when a team can field one or more Grimsby alumni, but Kiddie's only notable links with the Mariners are Shaun Cunnington and Stuart Watkiss, both of whom had stints managing the Harriers. There's nobody there to worry about right now, no curse of the former player to lift, no need for the manager to pee at the corner flags before this game. Don't worry, I only tend to jinx the England cricket team. Town are safe and will romp to a convincing victory.

I'm going to leave the last word to Kidderminster's defender Jordan Tunnicliffe, who earlier in the week told their official website that "we believe can give them a game". That's a start, I suppose. You can't ask much more than that.

So, see you next week, unless you're at the game on Saturday, and then I'll see you in the South Stand. Up the Mariners!