Cod Almighty | Diary

What is this? No mindless mediocrity that we celebrate

6 July 2016

Forty-four days ago we applauded a frankly knackered GTFC XI off the pitch at Wembley following their anticlimactic defeat in the FA Trophy final by relegated Halifax Town. Tonight we applaud a completely different GTFC XI back on, at some place in Grimsby that I've never even heard of, to begin what looks like an insanely heavy schedule of pre-season friendlies in the run-up to our first Football League season in six years.

As now seems to be standard practice, this first kickabout of the summer will be against Cleethorpes Town. Your original/regular Diary hasn't consulted the Sky Sports Bumper Book of How To Be a Modern Footy Fan to find out exactly how high up the pyramid a nearby club has to rise before you have to stop being nice about them and start calling them hilarious insulting names. But I'm fairly sure the Owls aren't quite there yet. "Weethorpes" will have to wait.

Nevertheless, the Cleethorpes Town chairman (look, even Cleethorpes Town have a chairman!) is promising that his players won't be treating tonight's pre-season friendly like a pre-season friendly. I'm sure he's just being savvy (look, Cleethorpes Town have a chairman and he's savvy!) and talking up the game's competitiveness to get a few more bums on seats, rather than threatening that Dominic Vose will get kicked six feet up in the air.

At the time of writing it appears unlikely that the 21 players now on the books will be any nearer to 25 by the time of tonight's kick-off (which is 7:15, since you ask). The club remains one or two strikers light of a squad – which, with only a whole entire month to go until the season proper begins, is sure to provoke howls of anguish from the Fishy messageboard, that nutcase on Twitter who still wants Paul Hurst sacked, and people who spend so long on a single Football Manager session that an entire ecosystem develops in their pants.

If you're going tonight, enjoy yourself (and if you have half a minute, do let me know what the Linden Homes Club actually is). Town have scored two, three and then four goals in their previous three summertime curtain-raisers against Clee, so the chances are you'll see the net rippled a fair bit. But you shouldn't need me to remind you that this should inform no prognosis of the season ahead.

Town's form in pre-season games is a notoriously inaccurate guide to what follows. When we win all the friendlies, we go on to start the season very slowly and it takes until mid-September to record our first win. By contrast, when we lose and draw the friendlies, we go on to start the season very slowly and it takes until mid-September to record our first win. Well, if GTFC can begin pre-season with the same fixture every year, I can begin it with the same joke.

Last up today, if you haven't yet pledged to defend the dignity of your football club by joining the boycott of the bastardised Football League Trophy, please do so now, before you finish your sandwiches. Cheers!