Cod Almighty | Diary

How am I supposed to leave when you're sitting on my coat?

8 April 2016

Retro Diary writes: Last week I was feeling brave and strayed onto the Fishy. There is much wisdom on there, of course, which is well worth a read. But the level playing field dictates that the more reasoned and thoughtful contributor can struggle to rise above the general argy-bargy. You don't even have to be a fool on there not to be suffered all that gladly, and a thick skin is probably a sensible precaution. It's all good fun, but it stands just behind the pop charts as a great example of what can go wrong with democracy (as also, possibly, does this).

But for me, by far the most entertaining aspect of the Fishy is that even though it's a passionate sort of place, the contributors can't swear, presumably for fear of upsetting Big Brother. But for the good folks of the Fishy, this restriction is easily circumvented, and benign code words are inserted, either by users as a matter of second nature or by the Fishy's own built-in autoreplace function.

Although you won't find it in the thesaurus, I always think the intervention "Fvck" looks a bit classically Roman. "Fook" is an uber-northernism which you certainly can't use when quoting Rob Scott.  Both, however, are certainly more elegant than the commoner "intercourse off". "Male private", to me, is simply a description of the lowest rank in the army, and maybe an "excrement manager" works at a sewage works? The whole thing can sometimes seem like a kind of other-worldly poetry.

This week, God bless the user known as 'Davec' for the Fishy's laugh-out-loud moment. His was a long and worthwhile post inspired by the reserves' inability to find the right ground for their Hartlepool away game. It concerns the poor impression GTFC can sometimes give to the outside world.

Our team bus, he says, is grottier than those of some of our lesser opponents. The spelling and grammar on the club's website aren't up to scratch. The staff in the club shop think nothing of asking each other if they want a cup of tea while serving. Filmed interviews with players at Cheapside are often drowned out by the sound of the mower. And Town's record of not turning up on time for matches, when the entire crowd has managed it no problem, is pretty poor.

Davec finishes up with the immortal words: "Have we ever heard of the six 'P's? PPPPPP? 'Prior Preparation Prevents Urine Poor Performance'."

If I need to improve my performance (and who doesn't), I might well forget all about the six 'P's, but the five 'P's and a 'U' will stay with me forever. There's a special kind of genius in there.

Another challenge was set for us by last Friday's Telegraph – the April fools' day edition. Not satisfied with just one spaghetti tree-type jape for us to spot, the Telegraph got people everywhere quietly muttering "why do they do this?" by expecting us to identify multiple such deceits. Princess Anne, of course, is not Princess Charlotte's grandmother – but that was not a trick, just an error by someone who evidently cares about the royals about as much as I do.

Aldershot might have been a great moment in Town's history had it not occupied the depressing rain-shadow of our timid abandonment of any hopes of top spot

Concealed among the usual tales of folks from lamentable backgrounds finding ever more tragic ways to ruin their own lives and those of others, these bits of deliberate barminess had the effect of leaving you not really knowing where the hell you were that day. It says something about the town you live in when you're not quite sure whether the most ridiculous stories are real or not.

I was moderately sure the 'monkey in Weelsby Woods' story was false, but only because the supposed simian lived on an unlikely diet of scotch and Coco Pops. In reality, Weelsby Woods is occupied by escaped parrots, which is not all that different, and I can easily imagine some pissed-up loon standing on the stone lions and singing the squash banana song from The Lion King – part of the Telegraph's elaborate story.

The Dock Tower needing to be reduced in height by one metre for air show safety regs was not quite believable either – even though, rather ironically, over the last century we have knocked down every decent building in the town bar about four, and those are now falling down of their own accord.

The other two false stories – for indeed, there were four in total – were thinly disguised advertisements for local seafood companies, which turned what was an innocuous giggle into something slightly more unpleasant.

Apparently, the cherubic children of Grimsby's Cambridge Park Academy tucking into their "magic breakfasts" was not one of the four fabrications but the day's most unlikely true story. There was no hint as to what made their breakfasts magic, but their happy faces suggested that it was working. Weirdly, I guessed it wasn't an April fool, because let's face it, who the hell would believe in a magic breakfast.

Sadly, the Conference table that day was also true, with Town 14 points off the top but only four away from non-play-off meaninglessness. Before the day had ended it was destined to get worse, on the bobbly turf of Cheltenham's 'World of Simulation' stadium. At least the little shit Wright got a retrospective three-match ban, which was intensely pleasing.

Just as the whole thing was starting to look like Operation Avoid Promotion, the excellent non-League bun-fight which was Tuesday night at Aldershot happened. This might have been a great moment in Town's history had it not occupied the depressing rain-shadow of our timid abandonment of any hopes of top spot during the previous week.

We should, I'm sure, forget all that, and follow Middle-Aged Diary's wise advice to live in the moment. It was in truth a tale of two woeful defences, but certainly cheered us up a bit, and we can at the very least now hope that it acts as a springboard for us to hit the play-offs in form.

Tomorrow it's Eastleigh, a team against whom we have always won. Yes, that's right, every single time. It would be rather nice to do so again – who knows, there's even a small chance that it might be the very last time we ever play them, although these smokers don't think so (one for you, Telegraph?).

For us, the only thing in the team news that matters is that Omar, to whom the entire football section of today's paper is dedicated, must start. UTM.