Cod Almighty | Diary

Donny in the Osmond

31 March 2017

Retro Diary writes: Yes, I know you've wound down, zoned out and slouched into a kind of summer torpor. Nowt's happening – I know that. The season's gone as flat as a flounder.

But sit up a minute, we've one last thing to do this season. Silly Donny are bringing 1,900 fans tomorrow, and we can't let the buggers get away with thinking they rule the joint. I know taking them seriously doesn't come easy, and I dare say it won't be for long. But we must try.

Yes. Tomorrow it's Donny in the Osmond. They are top, and while they can't technically win promotion on our pitch, they could do so by the end of the afternoon if other results go their way, with their fans still milling around Meggies half pissed. Basically, they are as good as up, and their following will be in party mood.

Donny looked no great shakes at the Keepmoat back before Christmas, which makes me even sicker that we didn't have a more determined stab at promotion this season. We're glad to be back up here all right but, as we've seen, there are no world beaters in this division right up to the top. I will find the Donny team celebrating in front of 1,900 travelling fans tomorrow particularly irksome; if it happens of course, which seems quite likely. So let's pay attention and give our boys a lift, just one last time. After that, you can do what you like.

In all seriousness, Donny's recent history provides us with a fascinating case study from which we could perhaps learn something important. At Belle Vue, they were a truly trivial outfit - the minnowiest of minnows. The language Donny were using about the need to move to a better stadium in the years leading up to their 2007 flit was disturbingly familiar. And what do you know – their ranking seems to have taken an upward lurch since then, coinciding with the construction of that soulless plastic container. It all seems a bit odd, doesn't it. So is it right?

On groundhoppers' websites, the Keepmoat is generally not highly regarded, being described with euphemistic restraint as "a bit nondescript" and "not everyone’s cup of tea". The Telegraph (Daily, not Grimsby Evening), in its review of the 31 teams which have moved home since Scunny started the trend in 1988, describes the Keepmoat as "perfectly passable". Yes I know that sounds like a compliment, but this is a football ground we are talking about – a spiritual home, a fortress. I'm rather hoping that Town present us with something that inspires a bit more excitement than "perfectly passable".

So do the building of the Keepmoat and Donny's rise up the ladder constitute cause and effect? Circumstantially, it would seem so. But actually, how can you know? How do you know that Donny's little adventure into the food chain's complex interior wouldn't have happened anyway?

Personally, that Town's new stadium could look like the Keepmoat is the stuff of my worst nightmares. Donny's new home is the very definition of 'identikit'. You need the sun out to know which way you're facing, and the height of the stands and general atmosphere took Town's massive away support to give it any presence at all. Which is funny really, because the stadium isn't desperately far removed from something you could live with. It just needs a feature or two; in short, a bit of character. Well any character would be a start.

The designers of the Keepmoat have fundamentally failed to understand that a football ground, like the team it nurtures, has to have an identity – a personality – to set it apart. Its purpose is to represent a unique community, after all. Don't think facility, with convenient parking and ease of use, think municipal icon: a place of blind devotion where sacrifice is a virtue. Somewhere where a bit of uniqueness - eccentricity even – can imprint itself on your soul, as well as define you in the eyes of the world.

And it's easily done. If you're not sick of hearing me say this by now, asymmetry is the key. But I'm grateful to Wicklow Diary, who evidently knows me too well, for this piece of asymmetry gone mad:

If you are wondering (and I'm sure you are), it’s the Philip II Stadium in Skopje, where Macedonia play their home games. Sadly, it has been rebuilt since that wonderful pic was taken. As the Keepmoat is brutally, contrarily symmetrical, so the Philip II is the opposite: brutally, contrarily lop-sided. So here we stand with the Peaks Parkway ponies awaiting their fate and a blank blueprint for a new stadium on the table: which is it to be?

This, remember, is the place you are going to spend every other Saturday until you die. Where your greatest moments will be shared with thousands of like-minded others. So take your pick. The Phil II has its problems, that's for sure – like a running track (a serious no-no), and no roof on the big stand, although they did put one on not long after this pic was taken. But with those things sorted, which would you prefer? Which one fills you with joy? Which one gives you the best view – of the game, and of the town that the game is all about? And which one is most likely to shit up the opposition and make the ref think that if he pisses you off he's going to have to walk through that fucking lot on the way off?

If you say the Keepmoat, I give up. My argument is dead and I'm resigned to our fate. Sorry, Donny, you may be going up, but while there's an idealistic bone left in my body, I wouldn’t swap my dreams for your reality. Good luck and all that, and y'know, you may have the last laugh when we build one just the same as yours. Or worse. And that's possible too – I've been to Chesterfield.

Victory tomorrow would be a nice surprise, and could present Town with a last opportunity to post out the season ticket reminders while we're on some kind of high. Even if little will be gained, let's at least avoid something awful. Come on Town, FFS.

The manager's weekend preview comes out later and later these days, and has beaten me again, but Scott Vernon is definitely out under the concussion protocol, as is Ben Davies with a calf injury. Akwasi Asante is rated as only "50-50".

Please don’t forget we kick off at 1:00pm, and show some nobility before the Donny fans. Remember this is their time, but that ours will come. Thanks.
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