Cod Almighty | Diary

Astonishing splashes of colour

23 October 2015

Retro Diary writes: Written into the Grimsby Town record books is the name of Phoenix Bessemer FC. Unfortunately I can't really tell you anything about them, because apart from the fact that they played their home games in Rotherham, they seem to be shrouded in mystery. They popped up, apparently from nowhere, in the FA Cup first round of 1882, where they received a 'walkover' against Grantham. In the second round they drew Grimsby away, a game which finished 1-9 – to this day, our club's heaviest cup defeat.

In the third round they lost 4-1 to Notts County, and their results thereafter seem not to have been recorded. I'm guessing there's a great story behind the brief but eventful rise and fall of Phoenix Bessemer, if only anybody knew it.

Again we find ourselves on the eve of an FA Cup tie which well and truly captures the imagination. And what's more, we were very nearly reaching for the record books again last Tuesday, as Podge lifted number seven carefully over Halifax's hapless keeper Glennon with a full seven minutes of the game to go. Now that seven was superb, and I'm never one to sniff at a seven. But while my Town-watching life has been veritably littered with glorious sevens, not once have I seen Town score eight.

Sevens are obviously more likely than eights. But there seems to be something about seven. Maybe the final whistle just tends to come too soon for eight. Maybe seven is a kind of subconscious barrier, after which motivation collapses. Maybe it's the point at which the players start feeling sorry for the opposition and take their foot off the gas. Town have certainly eased off strongly at seven on a number of occasions – I know this because my inability to see an eight is starting to become something of an issue, albeit one which I admit, isn't the greatest of my football woes. It all seems a bit strange, because although at seven-nil just a single goal would be record-equalling, often no-one seems really bothered.

Tomorrow, it's arx celebris fontibus as we head up-country to Harrogate. Shut up, I got it off Wikipedia (we didn't do Latin at the Havelock University of Crime). It means, apparently, 'a citadel famous for its springs'. Between you and me, in these weekend diaries sometimes it isn't that easy to think of something new or interesting to say about the opposition. Tomorrow I have no such problem. Harrogate sounds nice, even in Latin, and it is.

If we discount a pre-season friendly in 2014, this is another one of those completely novel fixtures which always provide a nice feeling of history being created, rather than endlessly recycled. Whichever team triumphs in this tie will kick off the account with a hundred per cent record over the other, and who knows when, or if, the two will ever meet again.

Apart from friendlies, Harrogate have played Football League opposition only twice in their history (weirdly, both times Torquay), losing one on penalties and winning the other 1-0. Although they're plainly quite a decent team, currently third in the division below Town, this is only the third game ever where their crowd has been segregated, and it's plain to see that they're not particularly well prepared.

It hasn't helped that word reached them on the bush telegraph that we're a bunch of short-tempered Yorkie haters, ready to kick off as soon as the first local looks at us funny. We hope this somewhat paranoid and simplistic notion doesn't lead to over-macho policing, which would be the quickest way of making those fears self-fulfilling. Having said that, maybe it's about time for another power-crazed steward incident to get our season going.

All I can report on the so-called segregation for tomorrow is that Town fans have the Stirling Motors stand along the side, and both clubs would prefer that you buy a ticket before you go. That's all I'm saying.  I'm sure it will be a congenial affair. But Harrogate will need to find a way of dividing up their stadium that doesn't either risk a giant scrap or rub their own fans up the wrong way, if they intend to do this sort of thing at all often.

Assistant manager at Harrogate is of course our own, the one and only Macca. It will be worth attending just to visit our greatest servant in his new surroundings.  According to Google Maps, if you want to walk to the match tomorrow it will take you 26 hours (you'd better set off now). If that doesn't sound realistic, think how many miles Macca has done on foot for you.

Actually I hope we recognise him – he seems to have changed quite a bit.

This game is in a cup competition that we genuinely care about, not like that other daft thing. The rewards for winning tomorrow could come in fairly short order, and we could be taking our seats at Old Trafford or the Emirates by just after Christmas if we can swing a do-able three victories, starting tomorrow.

To cap the whole thing off, Harrogate and its neighbour Knaresborough make a lovely day out. You may be imagining a kind of Alan Bennett theme park, steadfastly attached to an outmoded world, where flat-vowelled sons of sheep farmers roll in on a Saturday night to drink and make jokes about 'tupping', and older ladies in hats drink tea while perfecting the ability to pronounce words absolutely silently in the middle of particularly choice pieces of gossip.

Whether there's any truth in that or not, Harrogate is an attractive spa town; posh for Yorkshire, with high house prices. It has a market-town feel despite being close to motorways and handy for the now-cool city of Leeds. But it also sits on the threshold of some of Britain's remotest and most atmospheric upland wildernesses. The residents of Harrogate are happy there – award-winningly so.

It's the sort of place that doesn't really need football. Football for Harrogate is a luxury, an add-on, not the entire PR department for the town like it is for us. Defeat for Harrogate would make no more than a temporary dent on those good folks' celebrated happiness. But defeat for us could speed up the process of being wiped off the map. We do need to win.

For us, Gregor Robertson and Josh Gowling are out, as is Andy Monkhouse. That's a shame – Monkhouse lives in Leeds, so he really could have walked it. It also means that tomorrow's chump in charge Simon Bennett can't send off Gowling for the second time in two months. Conor Townsend is cleared to play by Hull, and the FA Cup's seven permissible substitutes mean that Josh Venney, who is my pick of the youth, will be in the squad.

Harrogate have two of our blasts from the past, Matt Bloomer (now 36) and Joe Colbeck.

I'm not expecting another seven tomorrow. I'd be relieved just to go through, even after a replay. But in the event that we do score seven again at some point in the not too distant future, please, please can we try to keep going and get one more – just for me, and of course, the record books. UTM.