Cod Almighty | Diary

I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.

24 May 2019

Football in the 21st century is a very different beast from the one I knew before the turn of the millennium. Information between matches was scarce; a quick read of the back page of the Telegraph while I delivered them around Middlethorpe Road after school was all I got to feed on. And that was enough because, stopping short of heading down to Blundell Park or Cheapside yourself and eavesdropping on conversations while somehow remaining undetected, it was the only way you could get your information.

Now it's the all-consuming, unrelenting and totally exhausting 24/7 news-athon, where dramatic idents on paid-for TV channels are made to sound like movie trailers and give the impression that a teenager being released from Preston is just as dramatic and important as the latest European elections.

This isn't anything new. 10 years ago a young Grimsby player's choice of restaurant in his spare time came under such scrutiny that it generated 15 pages of discussion and speculation about the club's dietary philosophy on the Fishy. Even we at Cod Almighty find something to say almost every day (and have done for 18 years).

It seems we're desperate for information, only so we can be disappointed by it and then moan about it online.

The summer should promise a calm and tranquil time... except news has to fill the spaces and rumours have to fill the Fishy because modern-day society tells us that we can't switch off. Something must be happening, all of the time.

Well, it's this news overdrive that's switching your West Yorkshire Diary off, for the summer at least. But my passion and energy for Grimsby Town is also in danger of switching off. Don't get me wrong; I'll never not support the Mariners. That's entrenched in my DNA. After all, the club has been a dominant feature in my life for a long time. How dominant? Well...

I've kept a spreadsheet of all the games I've attended. I'm not normally this cool, but it kind of happened by accident. While clearing out some stuff from my old bedroom at my parents' house a few years back, I came across loads of old fixture z-cards, and I'd put a black dot against the matches I'd been to. I had one for each season stretching back to the year I first started attending games, and so I made an electronic version of my attendance record with the Mariners and I've been updating it every time I make a match.

Not that I've been updating it much these days, and the reasons are plentiful.

I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Town fan; someone who won't ever support anyone else, but as I've grown older, moved away, found jobs, got married, become a parent and settled down in a city miles away from Blundell Park, football has fallen down the pecking order. It's no longer the priority it was when I was a teenager or young adult, when life hadn't thrown responsibilities at me.

I'm precisely the sort of fan Grimsby Town Football Club is losing. When I was younger, and living in Cleethorpes, I never thought I could become the kind of person who only gets to a couple of games a season. But that's exactly how many games I made last season - Mansfield at home and Oldham away. Two defeats, no goals.

But it's not the playing side that bothers me (the most). I was making far more matches when we were non-League, and the reason for this is that I knew others who were going. Football is more than just the action on the pitch; it's the journey to the ground; fish and chips before the game; catching up with the mates you don't normally get the chance to see, but Grimsby Town brings you together.

If my group of friends isn't going to make a match then it's unlikely any of us will go at all. And so, if one person doesn't go, the club isn't losing just one fan. It's potentially losing two, three or four more.

Similarly, if it can win back just one fan, it could be winning back many more.

Football is fans. This club would be nothing without our fans. We are the lifeblood of Grimsby Town Football Club and it's a real shame that our current board are so disconnected. If they keep on their current path of destruction, they'll switch us all off, and then Fenty will never get his money back.

But I'm afraid my enthusiasm is going. I can feel it. There's no question about it. My instructor was Mr Langley and he taught me to sing a song. If you'd like to hear it, I can sing it for you. It's called "Daisy".