Cod Almighty | Diary

Town are in the basement, mixing up the team selection

24 October 2019

Daubney Diary writes: The debate no one's talking about but for the purposes of today's diary divided Cod Almighty, has been settled. Tuesday and Wednesday diaries were split down the middle on whether Newport in the cup is a good draw. Using a calendar and Google Maps that placed them on a lay-by outside Sheffield at 00:00Hrs on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. 

Midnight laptop duels in sensible footwear won't now be necessary. Newport boss and possibly regular CA reader Michael Flynn waded in yesterday with a dismissive calm that belied the true drama of the developing crisis "It's an awful draw," said Flynn. "It's not a great draw for us. It's not good for the supporters. But it's one we can go and win, so we've got to go up there with the right mentality. And does anyone understand all the music references in Tony Butcher's match reports?"

Thanks for that, Michael, a man who obviously received a D- for the Mentality module but an A+ for Brutal Honesty in his UEFA badges. Any lingering hope of the TV folk picking our tie and billing it as the Battle of the Mickeys went with Flynn's honesty. Still, some decent picks nonetheless.

So it's Thursday, the close season of diary days. A diary day for those who wonder what the hell a flat white coffee is and for those who know but wonder why they need to. What can we cobble together or make up in the way of Town news in a world still reeling in awe of Tuesday's night game with Cambridge.

After eighteen solid years of basement-division bumbling from Town, I wasn't prepared for another three days of it, I can tell you. The only acceptable response to losing 4-0 at home is to transform into Town 1990 or if stuck, Brazil 1970, and descend footballing annhilation on the next team unfortunate enough to cross your path. Did that happen? Read the match report to find out. (Spoiler: it didn't)

The dreams of a takeover by a benovolent forward thinker who plonks us in a new dockside stadium may be just that: dreams. Is basement bumbling our lot now? A lot made harder by the if I hadn't seen such riches I could live with being poor content from @onthisgtfcday. It can't be two years already since it was twenty-five years since Dobbin rocked our world, can it?

Maybe we're Rochdale now. Well Rochdale then, we dream of being Rochdale now, scaling the dizzy heights of division 3. While Town were gallavanting around the divisions and creating moments of infinite glory, Rochdale dropped anchor. They managed one promotion in 87 years. That's an actual fact masquerading as hyperbole. They spent most of that time finishing 15th in division 4.

In the gay auld times of re-election they tried to shake things up by getting relegated, finishing 92nd in 1980. Unluckily for them, the Town directors, flush with the success of winning the Division Three title were even flusher with the free sherry at the league meeting. Our boys "forgot" to cast their four votes for Altrincham, allowing Rochdale to survive by a single vote and plumb the depths for another 29 seasons. Not-so-funnily enough, they finally won promotion to Division Three in the season we went down the u-bend to the Conference. That closure could almost be the plot-twist in a film. A really shit film, obviously.

Maybe the youth can save us from a present where the highlight of the season is the smelly end of a 7-1 scoreline. For our sanity and blood pressure, I'll skip past the stories that Big Club FC might be about to steal another one of our kids. No, let's celebrate the Under-18s going two better than the senior team with a victory over Salford yesterday. Lovely suff from Neil Woods's Black and White Academy and there's a nice wee write-up to be had on the SNOS.

Anything else? No. The belly buttons of the respective local rags are teeming with fluff on the weekend fixture with Cheltenham but I will leave the unpleasant task of unpicking that to West Yorkshire Diary tomorrow. Until then Mariners: up the Mariners.