Cod Almighty | Diary

There are two colours in my head

28 February 2017

Wicklow Diary writes: The thing I'm looking forward to most about the new stadium isn't the sparkling bogs, the parking or the leg room. It will be not having to talk about the new stadium. It's always there – new reports, threads on the Fishy or Twitter, or the Telegraph comments section – and I keep getting dragged in.

When Retro Diary preaches on the stadium, I take a seat in the pews and listen. And why wouldn't I? If you're a regular reader you'll know what I'm talking about. He's in the Main Stand for every home game and – gasp – lives in Grimsby. So you can stick your misty-eyed Cod Almighty exile nostalgia comments up your jumper. I was able to accept a move to Peaks Parkway when Retro started to consider the inevitable and give his opinions on how the new digs on PP could work. Retro watches his games in a church, and if he moves, he wants it to be to a cathedral. What's wrong with that?

There are a lot of questions about budget and funding in the discussions I've seen. The club will probably point to some confidentiality gubbins, but what are they keeping confidential, exactly? Are they worried Clee Town might swoop in with a better bid for Peaks Parkway? The deal is struck with Extreme, right? I'd be prepared to let the grown-ups take care of all this if I thought the grown-ups knew what they were at. Not one party has experience of a project like this. Not the council or the club, Extreme, or the architects FDG. By the time the deals are struck and things become unconfidential, will it be too late for us, the real owners of GTFC, to give our input on how it should be funded and will look? 

Tonight's visitors Colchester United already have a community stadium. Historic Colchester. Once capital of England some two thousand years ago. We read up on it as we munched our pre-match McDonalds on the ringroad there in August. After bypassing warnings not to cross the bypass at the roundabout to get to the game, we almost met a most poetic end as the delayed Town coach screeched past on two wheels trying to get to the ground in time.

A ground that seems to be completely ignorant of its surroundings. As a young engineer I used to scoff at architects. Pass me the ruler, I'll show you how to do it and quit faffing about. It took a few years but I'm starting to get it. A stadium that could be anywhere – Colchester or Shrewsbury or Northampton or Coventry or Scunny – is a horribly sterile thought. Not that ideas from the US are always best, but they got this message years ago. Out-of-town bowls surrounded by parking were abandoned in favour of downtown locations with quirks in the design which made the venue unique without detracting from the facilities. A ground for life. Anything else turns us into matchday drones and ignores the culture and uniqueness of our surroundings.

There was uproar in the 1980s when Town fans were moved to the Osmond and away fans were given the Ponny. They could make that change at Colchester and no-one would notice

Despite the anonymous location, there were things to like about the Weston Homes Community Stadium. The facilities were excellent, as was the view of the pitch/game. The problem being that the view was of rubbish defending and empty blue seats. A whole stand of them behind one goal. A stand that was identical to the one behind the other goal. The young 'uns might not know, but there was uproar in the 1980s when Town fans were moved to the Osmond and away fans were given the Ponny. They could make that change at Colchester and no-one would notice.

Punters like choice too. If you have a season ticket or regular spot at BP, you'll miss the enjoyable pre-match meeting in your head to decide where you want to sit this week. The game may finish 0-0 but you might be able to rescue some joy by seeing something you love from a different perspective. Don't panic, that's just dust in my eye, I'm not regressing. I know something needs doing. But as Retro has said, whatever replaces it needs a bit more thought than plonking four stands in a car park.

The football. We haven't had to mention Colchester often of late. Our performance there in August improves in relative terms with almost every away day. It's long since been replaced by Crawley, Stevenage and Crewe as the go-to "worst performance since..." Despite a dip in form after our visit, they have moved into the play-off positions with a distinctly average run of results which seems to work so well in this division.

I think Tony Butcher summed it up best in a match report last month: several teams will find themselves in the play-offs by complete accident when the music stops in May. The good news for us is that Colchester's run has been built on their home form, with their ten wins being one of the best in the division. This is despite a long injury list. The latest addition is top scorer Kurtis Guthrie, who was stretchered off in the Saturday's win over Hartlepool. His goading celebration in front of the Town fans in August was due to earn him a warm welcome at BP tonight.

What about us? John Fenty may refer to his manager's "never-ending contract" but it may become a six-month eye-rolling contract if Marcus doesn't buck his ideas up. Yesterday's Mariners Player chat had him at it again. Dale set the absurd tone: "If you take the early goal out of the Morecambe game, it probably had 0-0 written all over it." In fairness, the tone was hard to hear over a din in the background from what I assume was the players. You know when the supply teacher shows up 10 minutes late and the class have already erected a gallows and built a giant catapult to fire the smaller kids out the window into the car park? That type of din.

Anyway, Dominic Vose could return after injury and there may be "a couple of changes on the bench to allow us to go and win the game". Eh? MB also wants Akwasi Asante "not to just look good, but to be good". Eh again? And he's still talking us up for the play-offs. What were amusing bignotisms are starting to sound a little hollow. Marcus, if this is a rebuild job with one and a half eyes focused on 2017, that's cool. It's not necessarily what I wanted you to do but just play down the play-off talk and keep expectations set accordingly. Hursty's softly-softly-catchee-monkey approach took a while to catchee that bloody monkey but his closed mouth didn't swallow many flies either. And it usually stopped him from publicly blaming players.

We all want it to come good and it still can. Hursty took a while and Alan Buckley didn't get a Roly and John highlights video until his second season. Even then it opened up with John Cockerill making us all blub from the town hall balcony promotion celebrations with his "If I wasn't up here, I'd be down there with you". The first action on that video isn't 'til the Donny cup game in December 1989 when this time Cockers makes the Donny fans cry by bursting their net with one of the most unbelievable 90th-minute winners ever. That's a season and half of average, win-one-lose-one league action on Roly's living room cutting floor. Alright, we were on the scrapheap when AB took over, but this is what I'm clinging to.