Cod Almighty | Diary

30 August 2018

Your A46 Diary has only seen Town once so far this season – the 4-1 reverse on the opening day – and so feels a little underwhelmed so far. The new hope of the new season has done what it usually does and fizzled to nothing in the space of one 90-minute debacle.

Lots of water under the Humber Bridge since then, though, and our very own Putin has managed to stay quiet through recent events. No bare-chested, bare-backed baiting of social media for this non-chairman. A quiet approach, allowing the team to slowly accrue points, the players to gel, the manager's ideas to take seed.

Experimenting with back threes, middle threes, front threes... and so on. Our team is a vehicle for a manager's ideas, perhaps learned in an academy, perhaps a clear and genuine plan, perhaps nothing more than a belief that if it works on Match of the Day it must work at Blundell Park. It'll always be the case. Just like that bloke who sits a half-dozen seats away is OK when he's sober but annoying when he's drunk. It's all so 2010, 2011, 2012...

Still, it's nice to be on mostly familiar ground; who wants a thrillingly exotic life anyway?

The temperate climes of Bury could be just what any such thrill-seekers need and pairs of tickets are now on sale to season ticket holders. Yeovil stub holders can get tickets from tomorrow and Mariners Trust members can get theirs on Saturday. Any remaining tickets will be on general sale on Monday.

Ever familiar with inconsistency, the Football Association continues its own exotic attempts to thrill with a decision to uphold Wes Thomas's red card but reduce the suspension to two games. Right, so it was a dangerous challenge but not that dangerous? Like a challenge on Putin, it's technically OK to do it, you know, by the letter of the law, but just make sure you don't. It makes sense in some universe or other – probably the same one where ideas about opening up first-team competitions up to elite members' second teams make sense and will certainly ensure that the futures of 'lesser' teams will be both stable and thrillingly exotic.

How thrilling, a debut! Referee Thomas Bramall will be in charge of a game featuring the Mariners for the first time. If he's a rotter, may I be the first to claim the nickname Thomas Bramall 'Lane' and make the claim that he's an over-sensitive Yorkshire type who is still traumatised by those coin waterfalls in Fantasy Land? Or maybe, just maybe, he has fond memories of Fantasy Land and went home every summer holidays with pockets full of 2ps and memories of that triumphant weight will sway him when Hooper goes down one-on-one with the keeper, reducing Yeovil to nine men, the first sending-off coming after their key central defender disses the ref's childhood memories of perfect fish and chips. A sweet soupçon of thrilling exoticism.

DJ returns to the BP on Saturday, almost certainly to show us just how thrillingly exotic he really can be, rather than the brief glimpses of exotic footwork he flashed as a sub. But none of the exes scored last week, so why should one start now? Familiarity will perhaps return with a crash, but with no movement in the pre-deadline day loan market so far, Town may have to keep out DJ and his new buddies with what they've got.

What they've got was a back three (shudder) and may be a back four. Thrillingly exotic doesn't tend last long round here. We like it simple, we like two up front, we like wide men, we like to see partnerships, we like to see those partnerships grow. Growth, thrilling or otherwise, has been evident: draws against Lincoln and Bastard FS are reasons to celebrate. A lack of a home win is not.

The experiments with threes, along with our sufferance as vehicle for the manager, never seem to last once August is done. Maybe, just maybe, we'll see something more familiar, more stable, more effective on Saturday, the first day of September. Or maybe the goal to be thrillingly exotic, to prove a manager's coaching beliefs will stretch a little further this year. Maybe.

But if we're just dreaming or just watching or just hoping for penalties, or just wondering if Putin will ever be challenged, we're still there, still together, still near that bloke who's OK when he's sober and annoying when he's drunk. Either way, exotic or familiar, or exotic through the familiar, or familiar efforts to be exotic, your A46 Diary is looking forward to getting back to Blundell Park and switching whelmed from under to over.