Cod Almighty | Diary

Check out our photographer’s, Lee Blease, Chesterfield Fan’s Gallery from Saturday

10 April 2018

Let's talk about some good things from Saturday's win over Chesterfield. It was a win, which was good. Obviously there's a dearth of goal power in the squad, despite Russell 'The Builder' Slade's carefully considered January haul of thirty-seven loan strikers, and we needed a debatable penalty to secure the points. But it was a win. And there were some good things about it.

Bizarrely, Michael Jolley has managed to get something out of Nathan Clarke which Slade never managed to, and Town's erstwhile shaky defence looked largely untroubled. After missing sitters in both Easter games Mitch Rose showed remarkable fortitude to take responsibility for a potentially epoch-defining penalty. Harry Cardwell looked sprightly. Jonathan Hooper kept running.

Next, the sound system, and chips. One of these is a good thing; the other, less so.

Your original/regular Diary was, unusually, in the Main Stand for this game and I am told that chips can be bought from one of the kiosk things between the Main Stand and the Pontoon. This is clearly a marvellous development in keeping with the age of wonder in which we live. However, I was still unable to realise my lifelong ambition of consuming a hot potato-based snack deep-fried in oil while in the environs of Blundell Park, because of the new sound system positioned in that section of the ground.

I appreciate that the sound system might have been nice for you if you like the sort of music they were playing and you were sitting at the very top of the Findus, or on Spurn Point. And even the most enthusiastic defenders of the status quo would struggle to make a case that the existing PA system is adequate. But surely it is not beyond the wit of humanity to realise that a more effective and happier outcome would be had by installing four sets of speakers that are just loud enough, one in each stand, rather than a single set of gigantic speakers in one corner which are loud enough to reach the entire ground, because among those standing next to them that level of volume runs a risk that anyone over 30 may involuntarily evacuate their bowels.

And goal music can still fuck off, obviously.

(Just by the by, during the Stevenage game, I went to the kiosk thing between the Pontoon and the Findus at half time to get some cups of tea, and that was rubbish. One person was serving cups of tea and those terrible burger things, and three people were standing around doing knack all. The queue was massive. It took 20 minutes to get the tea, and 10 of those were while actual football was being played, in the second half: actual football that I'd paid 18 actual pounds to watch. I don't suppose anyone at the club gives a shiny shite, because that would mean having a club that isn't run by someone with a sociopathic empathy deficit. But I just thought I'd mention it.)

Still, chips. Chips! Maybe one day I'll get to buy and eat some.

So that's the weekend. Where are we now? Michael Jolley, who is nothing if not a maker of right noises, is making all the right noises about the need to 'go again' this Saturday for the visit of another relegation rival in the shape of Barnet. Ah, Barnet. I'd say they just need to make up their minds whether they're a Football League team or not, and then honour that choice, but people who live in glass houses and all that. If they go down I expect they'll be back a year later.

The picture is surprisingly similar off the pitch, where the club is showing uncharacteristic preparedness for a big game in reappointing Andy Carr as Mighty Mariner. In case you'd half forgotten it in among the club's multitudinous sundry clangers, John Fenty opted to dispense with Andy's services in 2016 – the rationale being that, rather than the club paying the mascot for doing a job, the mascot should pay the club for being allowed to. A flawless masterstroke, you will surely agree, but for the minor detail that when the club then publicised the 'opportunity' to pay for being a mascot, this many people opted to take it up: no people. As climbdowns go, I'd say Jens Bojen's descent of Everest in 2005 was more triumphant than Town's rather sheepish decision to bring back Mighty, but let us celebrate both.

Last up today, if you're a person from the Grimsby area, please give a helping hand to a Mariners fan and linguistics student by taking part in his research on perceptions of speech by people from the Grimsby area. You have to listen to some words and say whether you think the speaker is also from the Grimsby area. It's actually kind of fascinating. Here's the link – now go and take part. All Town aaaren't we.