Cod Almighty | Diary
Shoes off the table
27 June 2018
One of your original/regular Diary's favourite things about football in England is the way it reflects the country's social and economic history and, in many cases, its mythology and rich folk traditions.
The concentration and power of clubs in the north-west, for example, results from the origins of professionalism in that region and the high numbers of people once employed there in textiles and shipping. The nicknames of clubs, too, are often rooted in the dominant industries of particular localities in the early days of the Football League – from Mariners and Iron to Railwaymen and Tractor Boys. And the close season is a relic pre-dating the Industrial Revolution, when England was still a subsistence-based, largely agricultural economy, and during June and July professional footballers would be expected to swap their Adidas Predator SLs for a smock and help their families with the barley harvest.
Particular folk rituals, most largely lost to us now but with some surviving exceptions, were associated with key dates in the passing of the seasons, often embodying ancient paganistic beliefs. The Derbyshire tradition of well dressing, for instance, is thought to have originated as an expression of gratitude to the gods for a reliable water supply. The allocation of grazing rights in Gloucestershire depended on a practice which later became famous as the rolling of cheeses down a hill. Here in north-east Lincolnshire, similarly, the end of the close season and the start of pre-season training has been marked for centuries by the burning of terracotta cones placed to form a pentangle around a large straw effigy of Dave Moore.
The area retains many rituals and superstitions rooted in its seafaring history. Grimsby Town goalkeepers are discouraged from wearing green, a colour deemed unlucky by trawlermen, as anyone unlucky enough to fall overboard while wearing it becomes more difficult to spot among the waves. Likewise, supporters of the club believe their forthcoming season will be infertile and cursed by the gods if they do not perform a complex annual sacrament whereby some of them go on messageboards and say oooh I'm a bit worried we haven't signed many players yet and some more of them say it's alright there are still five and a bit weeks left until the first game of the season.
Another recurrent theme in English legend is that of mythical figures who are rumoured to have been sighted at large but whose existence has never been officially confirmed. The identity of the figure shifts through time and place – from the Bean Nighe of ancient Scottish folklore to Spring-Heeled Jack in Victorian London. In the Grimsby area, too, this figure has taken various forms, from Glen Downey and Jake Sagare in times of yore to, more recently, Hamish Watson and Ahkeem Rose, who has just signed a new contract keeping him at Blundell Park until 2020.
One final superstition worthy of mention here is the portent of doom, sightings of which are believed to precede upheaval, chaos and destruction. Before the advent of astronomy, comets and eclipses were widely taken as a signifier from the gods that disaster would soon unfold. The black dog is another such emblem, thought to predict impending death. In seafaring tradition, ill-fortune is supposed to follow the appearance of the Flying Dutchman, a ghostly vessel which can never make harbour, doomed to remain at sea forever. And in Grimbarian mythology specifically, catastrophe is foretold by the appearance of the club statement on the official website, typically published by the major shareholder on the stroke of midnight.