Cod Almighty | Diary

It is this deep blankness is the real thing strange

24 January 2018

Your original/regular Diary is having all kinds of mixed feelings today. Sure, Town are currently enduring the sort of form that has some fans waking in the night, shaking and crying uncontrollably, incapable of any speech other than a roar of "2010! 2010!", and there's not long left to bring in reinforcements. But do we really want more players? We've got loads of them already and it's not done us much good so far. Also the fact there's only a week left to the end of the transfer window also means there's only a week left until payday.

Jaunty introduction complete, this is normally the part of the show where I'd start to look at the GTFC news in more detail. Unfortunately, my lazy diarist's go-to source for hot happenings, the #GTFC hashtag on Twitter, is currently submerged under a flood of content with zero relevance to the football. Yes, I know, this happens fairly regularly. I wasn't very interested in pictures of unnaturally shaped bottoms and I'm not interested in futsal either.

Some fans cherish the idea of a new Golden Generation at GTFC, dreaming that the club will be lifted from the doldrums by a new cohort of fairly talented youth players. The actual talent level is crucial. They must be just talented enough for them to stay with the Mariners and play for the first team for a bit, maybe winning games from time to time, just possibly allowing us to dream of promotion. But not too talented, obviously, because then the Premier League would just hoover them all up under EPPP at the age of 12¾ for a compensation package amounting roughly to the value of a packet of crisps.

If you're one of those fans, you'll be excited by the news that Town's current under-18s have beaten their Lincoln City counterparts 5-0. The club is so excited that it's put some shaky pitchside footage on YouTube. It's pretty great, to be fair. If you can't get excited when Alan Buckley's grandson scores, there's an important part of your heart missing. I'd check the lost property office at Blundell Park if I were you. It might be stored away with the souls of people who want their team to lose because the manager might get sacked.

Tonight comes a timely dose of perspective, anyroad. Never let it be said that Blundell Park is short on drama. To its immense credit, our football club hosts a programme of music and readings together with a play, all in support of the Sporting Memories Network, in the run-up to this weekend's designated 'memory game' against Luton. Please get along to it if you can. It'll be one visit to BP this season that'll make you feel better, not worse.