Cod Almighty | Diary

The one where your diarist sparks civil war by likening North Ferriby to a cold sore

15 July 2016

Retro Diary writes: “Grimsby?” People say, “I’ve never been there”, politely omitting to add, “it doesn’t sound very nice”. “Well, why would you?” we respond with the now stock answer, “it’s the end of the line; it’s not on the way anywhere, unless you want to finish up in the sea. (ho, ho)” Well, why would you indeed but while in the ‘why would you’ stakes, try Dronfield.

Okay, hands up anybody else, apart from me, who got all the way to Derbyshire’s capital of meaninglessness last Saturday without realising the game was off? In fact, it was already off before I left but I didn’t check. I didn’t guess (how could I?), and nobody told me.

When I found myself on my own in sunny (yes, sunny!) Dronfield, I started to ponder what the hell I was doing with my life. Some people, I surmised, aren’t taking this football thing as seriously as me, and maybe they’re right. Maybe I’m the only person sad enough to spend Saturday afternoon in Dronfield while other people are at home watching Wimbledon, supping ale in the garden and getting ready for a barbecue. So I drove home again with some loud, distracting music on the stereo, trying to forget about it all.

I was really looking forward to seeing Town play the world’s oldest football club too; a club with legendary principles and commitment to social values. Well, Sheffield FC, I’ll give you one principle for free: you can’t call a game off because of the weather in July. It’s impossible. If your pitch isn’t playable in July, your club is in contempt of common sense. Find a hill to play on – you’re three miles from the Peak District for chrissakes.

The problem at North Ferriby on Tuesday evening, contrarily, was that we did play the game. North Ferriby occupies one of those blank spaces on the map that you can’t imagine what’s there without going to see for yourself. On the mouth of the Humber it’s back a bit, where the cold sore would be. In fact, it turned out to be disarmingly idyllic, with many attractive larger houses enjoying substantial views across the river to the English side. The locals were charming too if you could ‘kerp’ with the accent.

The immaculate but slightly over-long turf slerped (stoppit) very gently towards the single proper (but somewhat low) stand. With a backdrop of the Humber Bridge, a strongish-looking Town eleven experimented with a system comprising no defence at one end, and the killer instinct of a dead cat at the other. I tried to argue that it was a good thing to get the calamities out of the way before points get involved – you learn nothing after all, by playing well – but I may have been kidding myself. Can killer instinct actually be learned, or is it something you’re born with? We sincerely hope the former. Defending, I’m pretty sure, can be learned. That’s a hint, by the way. And strikers are something you can – y’know – buy. [No news on this, by the way, at the time of hitting ‘send’]

We nearly had another striker of course but he got injured. One whom Geoff Ford tenderly describes today as, “wholehearted but inaccurate”. Bless ‘im.

Had it not been for the tug of a shirt in May, North Ferriby v Town could have been a league fixture. Contrary to the satisfaction most would have felt at having to travel such a short distance for a competitive away game, for me the thought of three thousand Town fans trying to squash into five hundred tickets in that ground would have been the biggest recipe for disorder I can imagine. Idyllic, sleepy North Ferriby, you may never know how lightly you got off.

I didn’t go to Stamford – I’d run out of heart by then, which is a shame because Lincolnshire doesn’t boast too many more scenic towns. Stamford is culturally in the small but historic county of Rutland and only finds itself in Lincolnshire courtesy of a peculiar detour in the county boundary which swings jauntily out of its way to encircle the town. A completely fresh eleven turned out, with an emphasis on youth (just accept the compliment, Andy Warrington), to face a statuesque (some say fat) Stamford team. But we lost again! Don’t ask me how, I can’t seem to find anyone who went to talk to about it. So what’s going on? Actually, we know these players aren’t bad on their day and we’re not saying they’re not trying – not yet anyway. Do you know what it might be? It’s just a hunch but maybe it’s the 2-8-0 formation. Oooh yes, it makes sense now you say it. You can’t make up for having no strikers by playing your full-backs at the wrong end.

Tonight it’s Hull. We’re supposed to hate them but I really don’t. They’re local but sort of not, at the same time. I don’t hate them in the same way that I assume Dover FC don’t hate Calais FC, although the distance is about the same. The cultural divide is just too great. We don’t compete with them for any aspect of our identity, at least not since the fishing industry went tits up. It’s true that since Grimsby and Hull were equal ranking fishing ports in 1975, Hull as a city seems to have had everything on a plate while we’ve been completely neglected. But Hull should still, even given all that, be something of an inspiration to us. Having very nearly gone out of the league altogether in 1998 and having been close to liquidation shortly after that, now in 2016 they’re starting not their first, but second stint in the Premier League. They’ll get relegated of course and we’ll laugh, although mainly at all the wailing and gnashing of teeth on Radio Humberside rather than from any visceral contempt. We’d swap places with them in a flash, of course.

Finally, It was a joy last night to be present at a packed Carr Lane Social Club for the visit of Bobby Cumming, on a rare trip away from his Indiana home. For any Town fan whose formative years spanned the end of the seventies and beginning of the eighties, Bobby may well be the legend of all legends, and he was received as such. With many of Bob’s former team-mates in attendance, the night’s general tenor can be fairly described as ‘laddish’. But Bob – bald, bespectacled, with a neat white goatee and smart tie – had the demeanour of someone occupying the edgy end of accountancy and showed an extremely endearing reluctance to dominate his own proceedings. The half-Scottish, half-American accent highlighted the passage of time. For those who didn’t witness that phenomenal team, Bob (as they say in the modern cliche) used to leave everything on the pitch, including occasionally a very small spattering of his opponents’ blood. He wouldn’t have liked losing to North Ferriby at all and someone would have paid for that. Let’s not omit to mention though, lest we should become obsessed only by the more physical aspects of his game, a great footballer and integral element in the best Town team of my lifetime.

UTM