Cod Almighty | Diary
It’s 19 August and our losing streak is one
19 August 2015
With midweek visits to Wrexham and Chester next month, guest invitees Town opened the autumn series of the North West and Area Combined Floodlit League with a defeat last night. Judging by the traffic reports from the M62, they are not trips that Town fans will relish. Especially if we’ve to contend with another Manchester United game and their loyal fans clogging up the motorway network as they return to their home towns across the UK.
A disappointing, gut-wrenching and clichéd defeat. No points, no goals? Send in the Town. Although playing poorly, we created enough chances to win and Altrincham benefitted from a couple of freak events. Playing poorly is part of football, as is the terrible decision to award the first ‘goal’. You can see from the Alty YouTube video that the ball didn't cross the line. Even more revealing is that with the position of McKeown and several other bodies, the linesman couldn't possibly have seen the ball. What a mush head.
For a bit of perspective, using Pearson as emergency centre forward shows how thin the squad is with the current injury list. Losing Marshall, JP and Brown have been big blows. I had cringed at the talk of signing lump-ball specialist Nathan Blissett on loan but he would have been better than the old ‘stick the centre-half up front routine’ (see Ben Futcher at Wembley and countless Mick Lyons cameos for proof of how futile this is.)
For even more perspective, consider Altrincham’s Tom Marshall – it sounded like a bad injury and I wish him a speedy recovery. Anyone listening to JT and Chris Parker will have experienced the sickening feeling when they thought it was Clay and then Amond who was hurt. I know I was guilty of being relieved when they eventually realised it wasn’t a Town player.
Operation Promotion left a lot of Town fans proclaiming themselves to be the best in football. Games like night give us all an opportunity to prove it. To show we are not a fickle shower who only sing when we’re winning. We can't be drama queens that shout and groan at their own team and demand wholesale changes at the first sign of bother. We can’t praise Hurst for biding his time and finding gems like Amond and then slate him for not bringing in more when injuries arose. Hurst didn’t get anyone in because the right players weren’t available.
We can’t be like every other guff-spouting football nesbit. Like a guy I work with it. A guy who at breakfast every morning in the work canteen, puts honey into his bowl and then hides it with his porridge to save the 10p. He thinks no one knows. But I do, I just don't know what I'm going to do about it. Maybe start copying him. Anyway, that’s not why he’s a nesbit. He’s a Liverpool fan and spent yesterday morning telling everybody ‘I told you so’ about Benteke. You’d think he'd personally scouted him playing parks football and tipped Brendan Rodgers off. No, he’s scored 50 goals in two seasons and cost thirty odd million you honey-pinching prat. Hurst has to scout and research and then cajole players ... and then do it all again when he gets told "no thanks".
Anyway, I’m one to talk. When things are going well for Town, internet bandwidth fizzes, match travel plans are made, and old Town books and memorabilia are dusted off. On an average internet day I'll go through the Cod Almighty archives (naturally), every #gtfc on Twitter, The Fishy, Mariners Player, Telewag, fascinate myself with obscure YouTube videos (like this 4-2 defeat at Bristol in 1987. What’s with the blue shorts with red shirts?), Google “Grimsby”, "Grimbsy" and several other variations and finally visit eBay and end up in bidding war for Gary Childs' moustache trimmings from the 1991 promotion season (eBay seller toptownbarber1878 has some gems, all with certificates of authenticity).
When we lose and I fall off the positivity bandwagon, I fall hard. Remember Noel Gallagher’s quote about his brother – “the angriest man you’ll ever meet - a man with a fork in a world of soup”? That’s me that is. Shutdown. I attempt a GTFC news blackout until the next match. Above all, the league table is avoided until I’m brave enough to peep and do one of those “win our games in hand and beat FGR home and away and we can catch them” calculations. So if you are reading this, your GTFC defeat news blackout is as effective as mine usually is. Breathe. It’s 19 August and our losing streak is one. Let’s share some reasons to be cheerful.
First up, go and watch the opening goal against Bromley. Clay -Amond - Monkhouse – Omar – Amond – Finish. A Buckleyan flurry of touches and movement. There will be more. We missed some chances last night but these boys are good and Omar and Podge can hit 50 between them.
McKeown’s had some genuine howlers in the last few games but is still a solid keeper. Both he and the defence will improve and we need to stick with him until it happens. In addition, his three words to describe himself in his programme profile last season were “Big fat goalie” – who can’t love that?
The injuries will heal and we won’t have to sign Nathan Blissett. I hope. JP and Marshall return to full training tomorrow and should be available in some capacity on Saturday. Scott Brown’s injury has finally been diagnosed and even though it means surgery, with a timeframe for his return we can plan cover accordingly.
We got some really positive feedback from Bromley fans and officials after their visit. Call me old fashioned or soft but this is the way I’d like Town to be. Give them a good stuffing on the pitch of course but be a jolly good host while they’re here.
We are scoring goals. We are even scoring goals from corners as against Kidderminster, Barrow and Bromley. And last night’s goal extended our ridiculous run of scoring away from home to 26 games.
Why is promotion to the League so important anyway? Have a glance at Division 4, it’s full of all those annoying teams we hate playing – Crawley, Luton, Newport, Stevenage, Mansfield, Barnet, Morecambe, Accrington, York– it’s just a bloody Conference Greatest Hits Album. Sod that, I’m keeping it real and looking forward to Curzon Ashton and Concord Rangers when they come up next season.
Finally – the silver lining. The defeat will make obtaining one of the twelve tickets we’ve been allocated by Lincoln slightly easier.
Looking away from last night’s game and fresh in the wake of one of those utterly pointless surveys with no basis in fact or tangible use, comes a much more essential and scientific poll of indisputably sound grounding. Yes, Grimsby and Cleethorpes has some of the happiest residents in the UK. Of course this news was announced on Monday and with a recent pair of 4-1 wins in the bank, what else would you expect? Based on something dubious called the 'Life Satisfaction Index', our favourite conurbation even ranked higher than our county neighbours in Lincoln. We can put the bunting and celebrations on hold though - the government has declared its intention to send the entire county spiralling into a putrid chemical sinkhole by rubber-stamping fracking plans for the region (although, in fairness Jamie Mack would’ve welcomed the earth swallowing him up last night after their second). We all knew it would happen one day, the only surprise is the sinkhole that pulls us all screaming towards the earth’s core won’t be created by a vortex of negativity centred on that “you’re bloody rubbish” bloke in the Main Stand.
To keep the big kids among us entertained while we wait for our inevitable doom, Top Trumps have a smartphone thingy that allows you to make your own cards. Making a Town set certainly entertained our gang on a rainy afternoon last week and there was plenty of debate about the categories and rankings. An actual printed set might be an idea for the club or Trust perhaps? It will be pretty tough to top the success of last season’s sticker album but I would certainly buy a set or two. And while I’m plugging thingys, take a look at this football map. I was delighted to learn that not only is Blundell Park included, it is reached by crossing a river using the Tony Ford. Beautiful. I just hope it won’t be jammed with Manchester United fans on their way home.