Cod Almighty | Article
by Paul Thundercliffe
10 January 2020
Town's following at Orient will be swollen by London-based Mariners. The exile experience has changed over the decades but still proves our ties are rooted deep.
Another away day, another big away following as the Holloway Express jaunts its way to Brisbane Road. Coming just seven days after the Battle of Field Mill, taking another 1,000+ is another searing example of the power the new manager has brought.
Leyton Orient away was always going to be a popular game, as the only true London fixture in this season’s calendar. Town have more than their fair share of exiled fans, many based in the south of the country. The East End presents the ideal opportunity to see the stripes in action, hopefully observing a dynamic new attacking prowess as we look to keep up the winning run and score more than one goal in a league game for the first time since September.
In truth, the high numbers that follow Town over land, sea and Yorkshire don’t all originate from Humberside and the surrounding areas. There is a healthy north-west contingent for the smattering of games in that area and a shoal of fans in the south-western corner for those hard to reach victories at Exeter. We have fans in every fold and pocket of the Isles, ready to go to the game that’s just 15 minutes from home rather than 200 miles door to door.
The reasons for exile are plenty, but generally people born in the geographical ghetto of Grimsby don’t stay and live there. Opportunities to work elsewhere, go to uni and then settle down mean that Town have probably got a higher proportion of exiled fans than most.
It was at Loftus Road that I came across a strange yet exhilerating phenomonen: The Cockney Town Fan. They looked like Town fans, behaved like Town fans but didn’t sound like Town fans. "Facking ‘ell ref! Sort these cants aht!"
I sampled it myself, living in Cardiff and then London for eight years from 1993. Back than, being an exile was a lonely place. Any news on Town was scant: weekly phone calls with the old man, the Sports Telegraph dutifully posted or letters from friends the only real means to get the fix. Sometimes there would be the odd line on teletext and the fanzine Sing When We're Fishing was a surprisingly good comfort, given the match reports were weeks old, but there was no Twitter, no internet, nothing.
If you wanted to see Town goals then taping Endsleigh League Extra at midnight on a Monday was usually the only way. That, or the Roly and John video at the end of the season. Not that you complained. It was how it was in Wales, the odd game in Bristol to cheer them on but solitary confinement for the most part.
London was different. The Wembley season coincided with my first year there and as we rose up the leagues, Fulham and QPR became regular haunts. It was at Loftus Road in 1999 that I came across a strange yet exhilerating phenomonen: The Cockney Town Fan. They looked like Town fans, behaved like Town fans but didn’t sound like Town fans. "Facking ‘ell ref! Sort these cants aht!" It was surreal.
What you realised was that these exiles had been gone for so long that they had taken on a new language. What was also fantastic was that their children – probably born and bred in the south – were pure Town as well, so ingrained was the black and white feeling.
These days, being an exile is enhanced with videos of goals as they go in, wall-to-wall coverage and the latest news at the touch of a button. The Cod Almighty diary also serves as a vital umbilical cord. As 1,200 of us gather to worship at the font of fish on Saturday, let there be no doubt that whatever we sound like, wherever we travelled from, there’s one, connected truth. All Tahn Aren't We?