Cod Almighty | Diary

Early days

31 July 2018

Middle-Aged Diary is old school. On Saturday, when the football season starts, the first test will still be under way. That is unless Adil Rashid has combined match figures of 12-60 with a superb counterattacking half-century to take England to victory over India in three days and cause one major explosion and several seizures in the county of Yorkshire. The seasons are out of kilter, and not even Nigel Lawson can deny that human activity is the cause.

Grimsby's first August league fixture took place on 30 August 1919. We lost 3-0 at home to Stockport, since you ask, on our way to finishing bottom of the second division. The season continued to start at the end of August until the 1950s, after which it began to creep slowly towards the start of the month.

The advance was offset in the 1970s by playing the early rounds of cup competitions – the Anglo-Scottish Cup or even the League Cup – before the first round of league games. If anyone is genuinely interested in renewing the Associate Members' Trophy (currently sponsored by Checkatrade), that might be an idea worth reviving. The games, with no B team nonsense about them, would be better supported than friendlies, but without so much riding on them that managers wouldn't feel they can't experiment.

But as the league season does start on the first Saturday in August, we can take a historical perspective and imagine our first five games as a free hit – a chance to get a head start before the "back to school" signs on the shop displays of uniforms and stationery acquire genuine foreboding.

We have three matches against teams we really want to beat. One of them, I hope, we'll only know about from checking the score, as no Town fans will be tempted to contribute to an illegitimate business model masquerading as a sporting club. Then we are invited guests as Macclesfield celebrate their return to the Football League. Next we have the trip to Newport and the warming chance to renew a friendly acquaintance. In among the league games, we have a winnable League Cup tie against Rochdale, and we are overdue a decent cup run.

None of it really counts until September, so let's just enjoy it. Actually, let's just enjoy it in September through to May as well. It's sport, one of the things that makes life worth living. If you aren't prepared to enjoy it – and sometimes that'll mean enjoy being maddened by it – then you aren't doing it right.