Cod Almighty | Diary

Build it and they might come

9 January 2019

There was a part of me that wondered if a Wednesday diary would be harder to fill some weeks, especially without a midweek game. Well, I should not have worried this week. A bit like a massive Sunday dinner, the hardest part is choosing where to start.

I'll start in south London, and Thunderdiary is still aglow at the miracle of the Selhurst Siege. Of course I feel the pride and the love but there's a couple of other points to make.

The VAR. I know it looked like a red and all of that, and I agree that it's not fair if nine games out of 32 have it, but consider this: what would have happened if the shyster of a ref had blown for a free kick immediately and booked Fox? A stoppage of maybe 30 seconds? Would play have restarted and then stopped two minutes later? No. It was the fact that Martin Atkinson played on that gave them a chance to VAR it.

Premier League footballers. What a bunch of fannies. The game in the top division is completely different to the one we watch every week. Falling over, squealing, looking for every advantage – and officals that lap it up and protect it. Bullshit.

The Swedish influx carries on apace with the signing of Ludvig Öhman, a 27-year-old central defender. Jolley said on the radio last night that he fits the mould of the kind of player he wants at the club – and I think he means not just ability but personality – giving us a greater strength of depth. It's worth listening to, actually, especially the bits where he rinses Mike White.

But if all that wasn't enough, John Fenty makes a video statement. Hurrah! I can really take the piss out of this! Oh, what's that – it's fairly sensible? He comes across well, talks about positive relationships and moving forward? Right. Puts to bed a rumour that was started by a 15-year-old on Facebook? OK. Anything?

Well, there were a couple of Fentyisms ("virgin land") and he gets bogged down with Peaks Parkway but there was nothing really to disagree with. Except one thing: the idea that we should move from Blundell Park at all.

I know it's not conventional wisdom and I'm not trying to be controversial. But I see no point in moving. Yes, we need to spend some money on the old girl, so let's spend it. Why move? Because suddenly Grimsby will have all these businesses and people that want to use facilities seven days a week? They exist now. You can hire boxes and you can hire McMenemy's: they just are not being used because the opportunities exist elsewhere – Europark or whatever.

Move because it regenerates Freeman Street? That will happen anway. Let's regenerate another part of the locality, and make BP a nice place to go and watch football.

Move because then more fans might come? That's a hell of a gamble. Let's be honest: we will all be surprised if there are more than 5,500 there this Saturday. There isn't the appetite for more than 4,000 regular fans. I bet a big proportion of the Palace away following doesn't live in Grimsby. I reckon some have never even been in the town. Our unique exile army means we are more likely to fill a ground if we built it in Birmingham.

I get that it's dilapidated. I get that it's old-fashioned. But one of the joys of watching Town is watching us at Blundell Park. The best thing about last Saturday was that it was at an old-fashioned ground. Heritage. But you know what? It had been updated. Had parts of it improved. And it was all the better for it – just like Blundell Park could be.