The Diary

Cod Almighty | Diary

I evolve, but I don't... revolve. Or vice versa

16 February 2016

We can't be too many days away now from the launch of that film we've been dreading ever since Sacha Baron Cohen rocked up at the back of the Pontoon a couple of years ago and spurned the opportunity to say: "Is it because I is black and white?"

Fearing the worst, North East Lincolnshire Council has pre-emptively begun a 'We Love Grimsby' counteroffensive. A social media promotion associated with the film has already resulted in the only Twitter account ever to have been intentionally blocked by Cod Almighty. And with increasing regularity the more understanding of my friends are turning to me with an empathetic grimace that says: "You're not going to come out of this looking very good, are you?"

For your original/regular Diary the imminent global rubbishing of our hometown is a complicated issue. I am a long-exiled Town fan – but not exiled far enough away to cut links with the town, geographically or psychologically. I've often been unkind about Grimsby. But then Grimsby was often unkind about me. Like many other hopeful Grimbarians, I left the area early in my adult life to enter higher education and make my way in the world. But equally it was to avoid getting the shit kicked out of me for being a man and having hair longer than 0.24 centimetres.

We know Grimsby still has its problems, but am I wrong in detecting the merest whiff of something resembling optimism in the estuary air these days? Somehow it doesn't seem as bad now as it did then. And like anyone else with a soul, I basically die if I'm away from the sea for more than three weeks. So sometimes I idly wonder whether, if I decided to move back to the area, I'd be able to make a go of it. Probably not, is my sadly wistful conclusion. How many locally based copywriters does the renewables industry actually need?

Despite the obligatory brave face put on it by council leader Ray Oxby, Cohen's film can only administer a further severe kicking to our town – at the very moment when green energy gives us a first flickering of hope in four decades. But will it end there? Is it just me who's very slightly concerned that, as the film reinforces Town's reputation for trouble, the dickhead contingent at other clubs will be all the more emboldened to come out and have a go at us when we visit them for away games? Since Burton in 2010 all the travelling I've done to support Town on the road has been preceded by a good long think. I hope it doesn't become more difficult still.

Our likeable but occasionally brittle team manager Mr Paul 'Hursts' Hurst has responded in several ways to his team's shit-out last Saturday. One, as Miss Guest Diary showed us yesterday, was to opine that we fans have been "spoilt" by the high standards his team set earlier in the season, presumably when it included Conor Townsend.

A second response to the weekend's failure against Boreham Wood has been to ascribe it to a "lack of quality in the final third". Let's translate this from Modern Footballese into English. "Quality", as we all know, is Modern Footballese for being any good; conversely, the phrase "lack of quality" means being rubbish. "The final third" refers to the area of the pitch in which attacking players operate; hence "a lack of quality in the final third" means we were rubbish in attack. If you're a pundit or a manager, though, you can't say that, because that's how fans talk. You have to say it in Modern Footballese instead, because if you say it in English people might think you don't know any more than the fans.

Lastly, and possibly most significantly, the 14th transfer window of the season having opened, after a closure of approximately nine minutes, Hursts has resumed his efforts to boost his playing squad, paying particular attention to the final third. Presumably he'll be bringing in a fourth striker at some point soon after the arrival on loan yesterday of 20-year-old Wigan Athletic winger Ryan Jennings. Jennings spent the first half of this season on another loan, at Conference champions-elect Cheltenham Town – where our new friend Charlie seems less than gobsmacked by his impact:

 

 

Mind you, Hursts sounds uncharacteristically effusive about him, which might count for something, because he was uncharacteristically effusive about Jon Nolan, and we're all Jon Nolan fans now, aren't we? What's that? Craig Disley suspended for two games? Yes, we are.

Right, that's yer lot from me for the week – but if you haven't seen the episode of BBC2's Sea Cities which focuses on the Humber estuary, have a look. It's genuinely fascinating and taught me a few things I didn't know about where I come from. One of which was optimism. Maybe we should all give it a try.