Cod Almighty | Diary

The gripes of wrath

20 June 2019

Irregular Diary has had to admit that I’m getting older and more annoyed with the world as each day passes: in life, not just football. Today, though, football is at the top of my personal and very long gripe list.

Fixture release day, the day we’ve all been waiting for, the day we find out what it’s all about as we steamroll into the automatic promotion places for the forthcoming season. Except there is so much guff in the lead-up to them that I'm bored already. The fact is we know who we’re playing, and we have done since May. It is just a case of finding out when. There are numerous accounts tweeting and begging for their timelines to be filled with best/worst opening fixture, guess the opening/boxing day/last day of the season fixture... it is all just a bit boring.

Now this is not to say that I haven’t immediately hunted down when we play Scunthorpe, to be delighted with a Christmas head-to-head with them at the church of BP before the return fixture at Glanford Park in March. Indeed within 90 minutes of the fixtures being published there are already two weekends away planned and a head-scratch on Colchester again being on a Tuesday evening. Not that I particularly want to go back there.

As it's certain that the Scunny and Mansfield games will be moved to 1pm kick-offs, why not just announce it now? The police had sight of them before they went public so it’s not as if a decision hasn’t already been made. That said, having a trip to Field Mill to be babysat by 200 bored coppers might be postponed if we mount a good FA Cup run. See, I can be positive.

I'm not bothered by anybody else's fixtures but I see that Salford’s pure and glorious rise to the ranks of the Football League will be marked with a showing on TV. That’s another thing that will go on my annoying the hell out of me list: the continuous reference to a non-entity football club with the words Neville, Beckham, Giggs et al sprinkled generously throughout. No thank you.

Elsewhere the Lionesses have progressed to the round of 16 with little issue, winning their opening three games in a World Cup for the first time. I’m not going into the whole debate on whether it is as good as men’s football as there should be no comparison. If you don't enjoy it then don’t watch it. I must remember this during low points for the Mariners next season. I shall be watching England on Sunday and hoping they progress as far as possible.

The hot topic of VAR was again raised in the Scotland v Argentina game. I don’t like it and I’m glad Town won’t have much at all to do with it for some time. The Scotland goalkeeper left her line and saved the penalty before a retake was ordered and Scotland were out. You’ll not meet a Scottish person saying women’s football is far worse than the men’s game because up there it's not.

While we’re still talking about those pesky women, the club is having a tea party for the ladies at Blundell Park this weekend to find out what needs to improve. I would suggest that any fan – male or female – would suggest that results would be the top of the list, so if this meeting can sort that it will have been a resounding success.

See you all at Linden!
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