Cod Almighty | Diary

What would it be like if one afternoon you piled up all 46 league commentaries in real time?

18 March 2016

Retro Diary writes: You’ll never catch me criticising Radio Humberside for having technical problems. What I know about broadcasting you could fit on the back of a stamp, and I’ve no idea what obstacles and equipment difficulties they have to contend with to bring us the away commentaries which are, largely thanks to our lord JT, of the highest order.

But they can’t be very proud of their internet coverage last Saturday, when Town took on Bognor at the "Nyecamp". It was all going swimmingly for half an hour. We were listening to Bognor’s own guy, but he was likeable and his bias wasn’t jarring, as it can sometimes be. Then a sound a bit like machine gun fire, and he was gone.

After what seemed like an eternity (I nearly gave up), there was the sound of someone saying “I don’t know, I just wiggled this wire, Brian”, and we were party to ten minutes of half-time sound effects with no narrative to disturb the slight hubbub and echoey sound of Bognor’s PA announcer. It was quite evocative really – like those stations that only play woodland sounds or a crackling fire for relaxation - I could almost smell the turf.

In the second half, the commentary restarted, but rather too well, as we were subjected to 45 minutes of Town and Scunny commentaries played simultaneously, with no-one apparently realising the problem and switching one of them off. Listening to the ins and outs of Town’s game and George Kerr telling us what Townsend and Akpa-Akpro were doing in a completely different match severely challenged the ability of my male brain to multi-task. So under the circumstances I decided not to also watch England v Wales in the rugby with the sound turned down, as I had planned. Three sporting events simultaneously, one of which I don’t give a damn about, is the stuff of nervous breakdowns.

At times, the juxtaposition of the two football commentaries was like a kind of improvised poetry, with its phase-shifted ebb and flow. It got me wondering: what would it be like if one afternoon you piled up all 46 league commentaries in real time? A mess? Well ok. But it may also be curiously musical – a sonic snowstorm. Who knows what fascinating patterns would emerge – it could tell you so much about an afternoon of football’s natural envelope, and describe the English Saturday in a single, all-encompassing sound effect. There you go Tate Modern, you can have that one for free. In surround sound maybe? If I knew how, I’d do it myself.

Being slightly traumatised by Saturday’s internet nightmare and hearing that JT was ill in the week, I decided to go to Guiseley and watch Tuesday’s game in real life to avoid mishap. How wrong I was. The Town following was so large, and the incline behind the goal so shallow, that I spent the whole first half able only to see the near crossbar and a wisp of Josh Gowling’s hair doing an occasional fly-by. My situation was very slightly improved in the second half as I moved round to the wings, despite having to block the view of some small children to get a look at the goal. By now I was beginning to wonder how it can be so bleedin’ difficult to follow what’s happening in a fifth division football match. Or, just maybe, the fifth division is the problem.

What I did see on Tuesday was a game which took a very special sort of talent not to win. It’s hard to criticise, even though it felt flat – like a defeat. We’ve played well and won much more often than not this season, which is all good. Even had we replayed this game, we would have won it four times out of five given the same performance. But you still couldn’t escape the feeling that a Town team bristling with division-beating talent was again slightly hampered by lack of ruthlessness and basic tactical remedies to simple problems. Which is ironic, as the overwhelming condition of teams in this division is the exact reverse – completely unable to shoot, but with width, closing down and timewasting coming out of their earholes, and anybody temporarily mucking up the shape greeted with a managerial bollocking you can hear from the back of the stand. Mind you, at Guiseley that isn’t very far.

If we don’t go up this season, maybe, just maybe, it will finally dawn on us that when you need to finish top, draws are no piggin’ use. With five minutes to go at 2-2, it should be 0-0-10, kitchen sink and every trick in the book. What the hell, chuck the keeper up too – 0-0-11.

So to tomorrow, when we entertain our new friends Bognor. Bognor Regis Town are another good old non-league club, having existed since 1883. Known as the ‘Rocks’, the nickname is not an attempt to make them sound harder or more musical, although it may have that happy effect. The name refers to an outcrop of stones which are uncovered on Bognor’s beach at low tide – technically London Clay of Ypresian, or lower Eocene vintage, 47-48 million years old, and full of fossils. When covered by water, they are a good place for a spot of conger eel fishing, or so they say.

According to their Wikipedia entry, Bognor Regis Town’s "ultras" (don’t laugh), known unimaginatively as ‘Green Army’, are led by “a local bearded man known as Goldie”. Everything about this gentleman seems to be a mystery apart from his beard. He may well grace the Osmond tomorrow, although these days the beard won’t be particularly helpful in picking him out.

I am told that we have now passed ‘peak beard’, which is a shame. I like the beard thing. To me it harks back to a time when men smelled of sweat and wintergreen and a six-pack meant a carry-out of Mackesons. Ahh.

The first goal tomorrow is the important one. If it goes to Bognor, expect the rest of the game to be very tense. Until you realise it’s only the Trophy, when that can be commuted to ‘slightly’ tense. Come on admit it, semi-final or not, the beauty of the Trophy is that it’s a break from the worry.

For us, Monkhouse (hamstring), JP (shoulder) and Marshall (knee) are all out and Jennings is cup-tied. Winning tomorrow makes promotion an absolute necessity, unless the final is to be played in front of an ocean of empty seats on May 22. Anyway, let’s not think about that now.

UTM