Cod Almighty | Diary

An exercise in presumption

3 November 2015

Here's a question for you that is more difficult to answer than you first think. Suppose Town make it through to the third round of the FA Cup and draw a really big team. Manchester United, maybe. Do we really want to win?

Perhaps it's like the familiar advice to a captain who wins the toss in a test match. "Nine times out of ten, you say you'll bat without thinking. On the tenth occasion, you take a second look at the pitch, glance up at the cloud cover, then decide to bat anyway." Of course we want to beat Manchester United, if we get the chance. But, accepting this is like Middle-Aged Diary explaining why I'm going to refuse the Nobel Prize for Literature, bear with me.

The win would be described as the biggest upset in the history of the FA Cup. It would be talked about for years to come, Craig Disley's winning goal and James McKeown's stunning save in front of the Stretford End replayed every January for the next four decades. Ronnie Radford would finally get some peace.

Everything else in Grimsby's history would be eclipsed. Both the obvious honours board entries – Division Two titles and FA Cup semi-finals – and the more subtle, enduring marks of pride in the way we held our own against teams with far bigger budgets over two decades. And there's the rub. Make history in January and we would go down in history as a non-League side.

For decades, Yeovil had a distinguished record outside the Football League. Their official site was pretty quick to play all that down when they were promoted to the fourth, and then the third, flight. You really don't want to be known as the team who caused a big upset on a sloping pitch in our great-grandparents' time if it is at the expense of everything you have done since. Hereford fans would probably love another shot at Newcastle nowadays, but I bet even they got narked when that pitch invasion was shown on telly yet again.

We know that the average sports journalist is only capable of retaining and relating one fact about any club with an average attendance of less than 10,000. A win over Man United would be better than having had a manager who pioneered the use of chicken wings as an assault weapon. But would we really want that fact to be something we achieve as a non-League club, when even the most hard-headed and practical of us are secretly imagining we can play in the second flight again, before we pass away?

Ah well, the chance would be a fine thing.

Wherever we get to, we'll be taking Malcolm and Lorna with us. Following the cup trail wherever it may take them, they will be Town fans until we get knocked out. The blog of their journey so far quotes extensively from Cod Almighty's own brief history, but we accept no responsibility for their re-creation of the county of Humberside.

When we make it to Old Trafford, save them two seats.