Cod Almighty | Diary
B team boycott starts here
30 August 2016
Wicklow Diary writes: Omar Bogle. I'm still swooning. Mariners Player has come up trumps with full-length recordings of the games so I can finally cancel the Netflix subscription. Now, if they could just get the live commentary sorted at games. The Radio Humberside feed until kick-off includes news of Hull and Scunny and the egg chasing and needs to be replaced. Of course the coverage is warranted but I would just like to hear something less irritating, like white noise, or the ref testing his whistle.
Imagine going to journalism school to get a job at a newspaper. I hated writing essays at school but these guys must have lapped it up. Loved it so much they wanted to make a career of it. Then they land on the sports desk and find there's a lot of Five star Mariners leave Stevenage all at sea, Daggers put Dragons to the sword, Gills tame the Shrews. Even if you see something you can get your pen into, you can forget it if it doesn't fit your publisher's agenda. I suppose people do all sorts of crappy jobs to pay the bills. The Mail, Sun, Express: shudder.
Worse, you could end up like that Town fan who ended up Lincolnshire Echo correspondent for the Imps. How did that even come to pass – can you imagine if Matt Dannatt were a Lincoln fan? Although it could explain why he only gave Omar 9.5 out of 10 in the ratings at the weekend. By the way, there were complaints for linking to Matt's ad-invested lair last week. Sorry about that. We'll add this to the business case for more Cod Almighty funding from the licence fee, along with being not funny, anti-Fenty, hating Grimsby, too political, too short, loving Grimsby, too long, pro-Fenty and too vegetarian.
On Sunday, that London Telegraph had a piece from Football League top brass Shaun Harvey. Knowing we're all in a tiswas over the EFL Trophy, Harvey prodded the nest of hornets by reminding everyone of his 'Whole Game Fuck-Up' plan consisting of five divisions and potential invites for Celtic and Rangers. It featured a chart of the potential set-up which, when initially published, cropped Town out of the league entirely.
This wasn't even the main sin. The article, by the Telegraph's chief footy correspondent, was basically a pitch on behalf of the EFL. Not a single opposing comment or insight. This is what makes the whole episode so frustrating for me. Supporters were not consulted in the beginning and their concerns have been ignored in the aftermath.
If you read nothing else, read and share the Against League 3 letter. Read the paragraph twice that details Shaun Harvey's CV. That will help explain how one of the biggest fuck-ups in the history of English football plops out of Harvey's arse this week and lands on pitches across the country. Excuse my coarseness but sometimes it is warranted. You'll read a lot worse on the subject online today.
And therein lies a bit of a problem. Social media and messageboards and, gasp, sometimes even Cod Almighty don't represent the real world. There are many supporters who, thanks to the whitewash articles in the print media like the one above, will wonder why there's a fuss about B teams and that nice Mr Harvey at all.
Our own Telegraph has a delicate balance to maintain with GTFC, but I even think its output has been a little one-sided. A statement from the Mariners Trust on the initial vote is outweighed by a statement from GTFC, a piece from Harvey yesterday and a piece from Geoff Ford a couple of months ago.
Geoff's entertaining column is quite broad and can tackle issues like not letting ISIS use Pyewipe roundabout during Ramadan because the council will close our schools and raise our bin charges to pay the north bank's Humber Bridge tolls, thus causing irreversible climate change by reducing the number of bobbies on the beat in GY. He took a well-earned break from this to savour the impossible and misleading prospect of Marcus Rashford lining out at Blundell Park in the EFL Trophy and claim that 'Grimsby v Chelsea/Arsenal/Liverpool is surely more attractive than Grimsby v Morecambe'.
It's their academy teams. This is a fact that the SNOS also misleads on. I won't cause more trouble by linking to the article but enter 'Grimsby Geoff's rash Ford Focus' into the old Googler and it's the number one result. In fairness, the Telegraph have termed the EFL Trophy changes to be "controversial" but have never really detailed why. Of course, they're not alone. I've only seen the Guardian attempt to give the fans a voice on the issue.
B teams are not quite on a par with Wimbledon having their club stolen, Man United being allowed to give the FA Cup a miss, or Carlton Palmer, Geoff Thomas and Andy Sinton being England regulars – but come on. Actually, do you remember those guys? That was 1992. See, English football has been broken for years and B teams aren't going to fix it
The contrived rules of the competition are getting worse by the day. Not content with forcing teams to contain five of the previous Saturday's starting XI, red card punishment happens in a neat little EFL Trophy bubble and doesn't carry over to the league. So if the next Paul Gascoigne does happen to twinkle-toe around the park and show everyone up, an opposing clogger can kick him over the nearest empty stand without missing a meaningful game.
I'll be disappointed if Town fans don't join the boycott. I won't be angry at them though. I'm angry at the arrogance of Harvey, the stupidity of clubs that voted in favour, the greed and collusion from the PL, FA and the media. It's a sad day for English football. It's not quite on a par with Wimbledon having their club stolen, Man United being allowed to give the FA Cup a miss, or Carlton Palmer, Geoff Thomas and Andy Sinton being England regulars – but come on.
Actually, do you remember those guys? That was 1992. See, English football has been broken for years and B teams aren't going to fix it.
There are still no signings for Town but I can report that Scunny's Jack King has joined Stevenage. He was asked to leave Woking in 2012 because several journos had overdosed on the Jack King/Cards puns. I do hope his nickname is 'Ace' though. Where do I sign up to journo school?
I don't even have a rumour of a rumour for you. Hursty took advantage of the league fixture-less bank holiday to do a nixer on the telly yesterday as a pundit for Tranmere v Guiseley. It must have been like being asked back to give a speech at your old school after going into space. Or at least successfully climbing a local hill. I should have tuned in for some diary fodder but I couldn't be arsed sitting through non-League after the last six years. I did try but it was hurting my head. There were two Atkinsons and two Jennings, that guy Clee who we should have signed for giggles, Nulty and Michael Rankine came on as sub and pass me the medicine I'm not ready for this.
Before nipping over to the Wirral, Paul gave his update to Dale ahead of Town's next game at Notts County (wahey, the rumours were right, Paul Hurst finally goes to Notts County, geddit??!!). Yes, that's right – Town's next game is at Notts County on Saturday: it says so on the top left of the CA homepage under 'Next match'. So you can take it as fact. Just don't take the 'Fact!' section as fact. Some of them are made-up facts. I think.
Hursty tells us that Sean McAllister has had his cure-all injection but won't resume training until before the Luton game. James Berrett has knee knack but expects to be training again on Thursday. We've sold over a thousand of our 1,738 all-ticket allocation for the game, so it promises to be a good day out.
Craig Shakespeare's recent appointment to the England coaching staff brings back the glory days of the Grimsby-themed Graham Taylor and Lawrie McMenemy management team responsible for capping the aforementioned Thomas and Palmer. The only thing that doomed set-up had going for it was that Phil Neal, the third member of the coaching staff, had turned the GTFC job down in 1985. If all three had been associated with Town we might have punished by being kicked into non-League long before Burton 2010.
Another ex-Mariner, ex-Baggie Dave 'Smudger' Smith, has a challenge that is not quite as daunting as making England players pass the football to one another. This morning he departed Land's End on his bike to John O'Groats on a fundraiser for the GTFC youth setup. If there was a match on before the weekend and you were going to boycott it, maybe you could do as several other fans have done and donate the price of a ticket to Dave's effort. You might be missing the match but you'll be supporting your club. Great effort Dave, and good luck.