Cod Almighty | Diary

Can't someone else do it?

28 March 2017

Wicklow Diary writes: With another international break somehow bypassing Town, I find myself asking again why are we still watching international football? I'm not talking about the general perception that it's boring and a bit rubbish (that could be just us, by the way; countries like Iceland and Germany probably still consider it to be great fun). No, I'm talking about the morals that need to be shelved to enjoy the qualifiers. I folded like a Meggies deckchair in the wind at the last World Cup. My boycott of Brazil 2014 lasted until the opening game when it was cynically scythed down by the neighbour's barbecue and cold beers. I'm not being too hard on myself. It's the football and we love the football. Isn't that where we go to get away from thinking about the difficult stuff?

We'll get to the team news for the big ressies game with Rotherham in the Central League East in a minute. Just let me get this off my chest before it topples me off my soapbox.

We all assumed FIFA was a basketcase of corruption. And then we got proof. But are we all just going to carry on as normal? Onwards and upwards to Russia and off to Qatar after that? Two nations have bought the World Cup and will use us and football as a bauble to distract from how evil they are. Maybe 'evil' is getting carried away, but how else do you describe knowingly forging ahead with stadium builds that will yield a Hillsborough disaster's worth of slave deaths per game in the 2022 tournament? I'm not going to open the file on Russia or I'll never get to that reserve game. Maybe quite literally if any of their agents are reading this week. Only joking. They're all Chelsea fans, surely?

So, if you're still here, you're probably asking why has this made it into a CA diary? Where's the Grimsby, man? Well, on the surface of things, it seems we're doing sod all to address these wrongs. I know I'm guilty of an attitude summed up as "when things are important, someone else is probably making sure they're being seen to". Trust the adults to sort it out. But in a world with Trump, a plan-less Brexit, and Ukip on the BBC every 20 minutes, I think I've been trusting the wrong adults. This extends from the big things such as when Qatar or Russia take the Shankly "life and death" quote literally, or relatively small things like our club's stance on the Checkatrade Trophy. (Hey look! GTFC at last! And surprise bloody surprise, it's a dig at Fenty!)

But this isn't necessarily a dig at our majority shareholder. I just don't agree with the view he presented at last month's fan forum. The Chuckabrick final between Coventry and Oxford is going to be a resounding success with over 70,000 tickets sold to date, and any dissent about the competition or Coventry's owners will be hindered by a one-metre banner restriction that Wembley has in place.

As sure as a team blowing a 3-0 lead spawns a hundred "choke jobs blown my acca" tweets, the final success will be the perfect brush to sweep the mess of the earlier rounds under the rug. We need to distract our fans' trust from its commendable efforts around membership schemes and fundraising with emails and polite collarings. No one wants to be wasting energy on objecting to Leicester B again next season, but we will be if we don't change John Fenty's mind before the League meeting in May.

You can add the stadium as a PS to your email. The progress we've finally made has come with an attitude from some fans towards Extreme's zero football experience (and their hiring of fellow football virgins FDG architects) of "trust them, everyone has to start somewhere". I look forward to similar views if Marcus departs and we replace him with a rugby coach and then hand him a £5million transfer budget. Keep on at the club and the trust or we'll regret it, guaranteed. We may regret it anyway but at least we can be the guy saying I told you so. Everyone loves that guy.

Anyway, about that reserve game. Better students of Town history can probably tell you the last time we won the reserves' league. I can only recall the expert guidance of Mike Lyons steering us to promotion to the reserves top flight in the '86-87 season. Today, Town could clinch the Central League East title with a victory over Rotherham at Blundell Park and our squad is the type of youth and experience mix I'd like to see (but won't) for the remaining dead rubbers of our League campaign.

One of the ad-infested Millers fan sites has a nice photo of the Barrett stand to accompany its article about the game. Well, it would be nice if they didn't think that the stand was actually still in place. Big-shots, looking down on our heap with their nice yet naffly named stadium.

On other Yorkshire impressions of GTFC, beware of Doncaster fans donning Town scarves and trying to gain access to the home sections of Fortress BP on Saturday. Rovers have sold out the Osmond allocation for their cup final and are sending some of their own stewards to help ensure there are no Donny in the Ponny trying to upset the day. Also in attendance will be Jim Dobbin. Jim turned out for Rovers before joining Town from Barnsley and, as well being an understated midfield boss, scored that famous last-minute tap-in at Newcastle.  

Finally, it seems a Lincoln fan has taken a trawl through the Cod Almighty archives and been inspired to produced a Dan Cowley action figure. A decent effort but there's no way he'd win in a fight with our Mike Newell.