Cod Almighty | Diary

I was surprised, I was happy for a day in 1975

3 February 2016

Grimsby Town fans, you may have noticed recently, are not altogether very happy at the moment. Your original/regular Diary can think of half a dozen reasons for this just off the top of my head. One is that we come from Grimsby. A second is that we still support a non-League football club. A third reason is that we support a non-League football club that's just lost to Gateshead.

A fourth reason to be furious is that another non-League football club, based in a small village in Gloucestershire, has quite outrageously assumed the right to decide for itself what kind of food it sells in its own stadium. A fifth is BT Sport switching our games to Friday nights. And a sixth is Paul Hursts not having an overly fruitful final day of the transfer window, you know, like that one when we signed Junior Mendes and Marc Goodfellow and didn't get promoted.

Doubtless these facts all fully justify our rage. It must be all of ten minutes until the next transfer window opens and we can sign ace players again. That might not be 100 per cent accurate, admittedly – it's a few years now since I gave up trying to keep track of all the transfer windows. But many supporters won't be able to make the journey to matches that take place on a working day. Some have already booked advance, non-refundable travel and accommodation. Friday football is inherently dreadful. And people keep hearing our accents and assuming we come from Manchester.

After being similarly put out by Sky switching one of their Easter kick-offs, Sheffield United fans have hit on the ingeniously publicity-grabbing strategem of invoicing the broadcasting empire for the money they've wasted on hotels and train tickets. The Blades Big Sky Bill totals £7,271.50 (and again with a crafty eye on the PR, rather than expecting to trouser any refund themselves, the Blades fans responsible are inviting Murdoch's lot to give it to charity). There is no truth in any rumour that they'll follow it up by invoicing the Mariners Trust for royalties related to Town fans nicking their greasy chip butty song.

Shall we make a case for Friday football not, in fact, being the same for both teams, and actually disadvantaging the away side by virtue of its inherent weirdness exacerbating the impact of home advantage? No. That would be clutching at straws. Let's wait until Cheltenham and Forest Green have beaten us before we do that. Shut up, it's a joke.

One of the millions of players Town did not sign on Monday – and one of the millions of players I've never heard of even though they've played against Town nineteen times in the past three seasons, mostly dusting our ass in the process – was Wrexham striker Dominic Vose. To some extent Dominic is a special case, because Town tried to sign him and failed, which will presumably not have been the case for most of those millions of other players (I mean we're not Peterborough for feck's sake). But the net result is the same as ever: player joins Scunthorpe instead, Town fans tweet about him choosing a smaller club, top bantz ensues, Diary loses will to live.

Enough of the Iron, and enough of the ire – let's play out Wednesday's diary on a happier note. Super-prolific CA staffer Rich Mills has done us another splendid new article, this time on Town's one-hit wonders. And finally, GTFC cult hero Justin Whittle (I think we can call him that, can't we?) has recalled his epoch-defining encounter with Alan Shearer in superlatively pleasing style. Quizzed by the Hull Daily Mail about his clash with the celebrity lumphead in Town's cup game with Newcastle in 2005, Sgt Whittle says simply: "People ask me if I meant it and I tell them if I did mean it, he wouldn't have got up."