Cod Almighty | Diary

I like my football on a Saturday, roast beef on Sundays, all right

11 April 2016

Miss Guest Diary writes: I feel reluctant to say much about Saturday's game. Despite Town having 19 shots on goal and 17 corners, it felt a little dull coming straight after Tuesday's rollercoaster ride at Aldershot. It's curious how time and perspective can alter your perception of things.

Take Sundays. Yesterday I spent the day pottering around doing chores in preparation for the week ahead, ate a roast dinner and watched a bit of TV. When I was growing up – in the days before shops opened or there was much sport played on Sundays, before the internet and when there were only two TV channels – pretty much every Sunday was spent in that way. And I hated it. Now I go a long way to avoid having to do anything else on a Sunday.

And then there's Jamie Vardy. Among the bit of TV I watched was Match of the Day 2 and I'm sure I wasn't alone in cheering Vardy on when he scored twice for Leicester to keep them seven points clear at the top of the Premier League. Yet four years ago on my one and only visit to Fleetwood, when Vardy popped up to score the winner in the ninetieth minute against Town, I was cursing his very existence.

It was around that time that Town began to feature a drummer in the crowd to lead the singing. I wasn't at all in favour, feeling that it spoilt the spontaneity of the chants, and also skewed the crowd away from traditional Town songs towards more modern, generic chanting. Then I was sat a few seats away from the drummer at Forest Green three years ago, bringing on a headache after about 15 minutes, and I cursed his very existence too.

Yet again I have changed my view and have come to appreciate the energy the drumming has brought to the crowd, particularly in the last two seasons. So where was the drummer on Saturday? Without him the Pontoon was even more silent than usual, barely managing a few feeble chants. I am ashamed to admit it, but we were outsung by the 36 away fans from Eastleigh. I'm not saying that a noisy home crowd would have lifted the team sufficiently to allow them to actually put one of those 19 shots in the net, but...

Having seemingly been cemented into third place in the table since before Christmas, Town now find themselves down to fourth. I don't for one moment think that Town will fail to make the play-offs come the end of the season, but slipping down to fifth would be really annoying. It's bad enough that the first legs of the semi-finals kick off at 7pm, but having the second leg of the second v fifth match at 7.30 on a Saturday night is even worse. Of course, if Town were in that match it would keep another Sunday intact for me to do nothing, but going to a match on a Saturday evening is just plain wrong.