Cod Almighty | Diary
Positively frothing at the competency
28 February 2020
Most of the week’s talking points have been covered. Town beat Newport on Tuesday night, non-chairman John Fenty announced on Wednesday he’ll be standing back (but not too far back) from his board duties and, later that evening, the Mariners’ Trust held a fans’ forum that told us very little that we didn’t already know. A bit like today’s diary.
Tomorrow the Cobblers trot into town. Jordan Cook and Jake Hessenthaler are definitely out. Harry Davis is a maybe, but will probably be on the bench. Billy Clarke and Elliot Grandin may return to the starting XI but their inclusion may depend on whether they turned up to training on time.
Your West Yorkshire Diary hasn’t got time on the ball today, so in an effort to make today’s diary something more than just recycling and regurgitating old news, or passing another opinion on what Fenty means by standing back, I’ve had a good old look at our previous record against Northampton and considered whether the referee is going to shit in a pram.
Basically, since beating the Cobblers in that play-off final at Wembley in 1998, we haven’t fared too well against them. There’s been just one win in nine league meetings, and that was the very first in October 2004 when Dean Gordon scored a late winner. So it’s eight without a win in the league (five draws, three defeats).
We did, however, beat them in the FA Cup second round in December 2013. I remember it well because I was getting married the next day. In fact, during my groom’s speech, the FA Cup third round draw was made and a guest from the back interrupted me to say we’d got Huddersfield. A perfect draw, since Huddersfield was the town in which we met. It was so perfect that it looked like I'd planned it as part of my speech.
If you have any wedding-related Town stories, by the way, we'd love to hear them.
Our last league victory against Northampton at Blundell Park was in 1997-98 when Kevin Donovan scored the only goal of the game.
If we can get just one referee who isn't ball-achingly abysmal then I think we'd all be happy. And the signs for tomorrow are... well, not bad.
The man who can't be in black tomorrow because of our home kit is Christopher Pollard, a possible relation to Su Pollard. She recorded that weird music video on Cleethorpes beach, remember, in which she interfered with the high tide clocks. Why? Well, one can only surmise that she likes to drown children, but that’s not what we’re talking about here.
Christopher Pollard has taken charge of 23 games this season, flashing 73 yellows and two reds along the way. The only time he's officiated a Town game, as far as my rushed research goes, was in November when Town were going through that phase of playing really well under Anthony Limbrick but not being able to score. The game against Cheltenham finished 0-0 and the “pernickety chap” earned a rather respectable 6.00001 from our match reporter for being “just normal, just average”.
Going to the game tomorrow? The weather looks like it’s going to be shit again. Sorry. I don’t mind the cold or the rain, but the wind is an absolute nuisance to football. Hopefully Ollie keeps us playing the kind of football that takes the wind out of the equation. UTMM!