Cod Almighty | Diary

Do what, John? Come again, do what?

23 February 2018

Mardy Diary writes: Come on then! Let's make some noise for the boys! Let's get behind the lads. We're all Town, aren't we? Hegativity! We're all in this together. Oh no, that's that other lot, isn't it?

So all we need to do is just turn up on Saturday and get behind the team. Create a wall of sound, don’t murder the players. Just a bit of positivity and support and we'll start to climb the table away from relegation. Easy, right?

Easy. You know - like last time. In 2010. At Burton. And Bournemouth the season before that. Like you did at Tranmere. It's all in your hands. So just turn up, sit down, and shut up. Well, don't shut up. Make some noise, but the right noise - not the wrong noise. And it doesn't matter what's happening on the pitch, and it doesn't matter what's happening off the pitch. Just clap and clap and clap and clap. It'll all be OK. John says so.

Yeah, yeah. Don't patronise me. Of course I want to support the club. Of course I want us to win. Of course I want every player to have the game of their lives (but especially Jimmy Mac, coz that guy deserves the love). But don't deny people their right to protest.

I have never booed Town at any match and I never will. I've never hurled abuse at one of our own players (opposition players are fair game, right?). In fact, the only time I've even left a match early was that awful away game at Halifax the other year, and that was mostly because I wanted to get a tired child on the earliest train out of there that I could. Nope - I've pretty much sat through the worst of it, and taken it on the chin. But don't tell me I can't make my feelings known at the game.

However, I don't agree with people who hurl abuse at our own players; that seems counterproductive to me. I understand the frustration completely, but I find it strange that people think it’s OK to do that. I remember a match under Groves where someone stood behind me and spent the entire match hurling dog's abuse at him: personal insults, criminally unfunny comments about shagging his mum. That sort of tedious shit. And this was well before the hammering at Hartlepool. I don't think we were even playing that badly - I think we drew the game. And that was Groves. A tremendous player for us. Trying to keep us in the second tier, with shit all money.

But so far, Fenty has had an easy ride at Blundell Park. Did Fenty played 68 games in one season for us? Did he as fuck like. For that he gets bloody well paraded around the pitch at Bournemouth because we stayed up as the result of other club's criminal activities. And yet Bill Carr got the full treatment as we were relegated in 1997 - chants, banners, the lot. Bill Carr - probably our most successful chairman in the modern era. I've still not forgiven Tommy Widdrington for ripping down that banner, mind. Shearer’s best mate - says it all. Wanker.

But the anti-Fenty chants have started to surface more recently - home and away, and that's probably why Dear Old John has given us another one of his little videos. Sure - you can give John some flak. He can take it. But just not at the match, OK. Maybe do it in your own home or something. Scream into an empty bucket. Pretend the eldest is John and send him to his room without any tea. Just don’t do it at Blundell Park.

But protest is always its best when it's the most disruptive; that's the whole point. There's no point screaming into the void. If you want to make a point to someone, do it where it matters most. And if you want to tell the owner of the club he's sending the club down the swanny, well where better to do that than in the ground itself? And that's your right. You've supported this club your whole life, through thick and thin. This is your club. And if you want to go to the ground to tell the current owner to clear off, then that is entirely your right to do so.

And that doesn't make you any less of a supporter. And that doesn’t mean you don't want the club to win, to stay up, to be successful. It just means you care about the way the club is run and you want to see it get better. We all do.

And if we go down? Well I won't give up on the club. And I'll still want to see the club succeed. And I'll still want the players to do well. And I'll still call the chairman a complete turd if that’s how he's acting.

But what if Fenty pulls the plug? Takes his non-benign loans back and the club goes to the wall, what then? Well Grimsby Pelham were formed in a pub, so we'll get some cans and go round Baz Whittleton's shed (he's definitely got a shed, hasn't he?) and be part of the group that sets up AFC Grimsby. And we'll just keep going.

I'll keep going because I support my club. But I also support the right to protest. So if you want to tell Fenty what you think of him on Saturday, then go for it. You have my full support.