Cod Almighty | Diary

Kerplunk

5 March 2020

Regular readers of Bottom-of-the-Barrel Diary may find it hard to believe that I once wrote something very stupid on the internet. To be more precise, I described Joy Division as "teenage Nazi whine-merchants" in an exchange on musical tastes with a fellow poster. Then, years later, I heard Evelyn Evelyn perform a very moving cover version of Love Will Tear Us Apart on a ukelele.

"Aha," I thought. "The problem here isn’t that Joy Division are teenage Nazi whine-merchants. The problem is that I am in fact an idiot." I now refuse to hear a word said against the seminal Manchester gloomy-gusses, and own all their records. I even have some Joy Division oven gloves.

So, where's all this going and what does it have to do with the black-and-whiteys? Well, I've forgotten. No, hang on, I've got it. The point is that sometimes people write silly things on messageboards because they are very young, or ignorant, or in a bad mood, or pissed, or mischievous. Grimsby Town boards are often full of fabrications, rumours, nonsense, logical fallacies, pompous assertions and other more general guff.

The first and most natural response upon reading the aforementioned guff is to have a big fierce keyboard barney and call each other nasty names. Maturity, I think, is realising that the username-disguised stranger you may be arguing with could be a child, or someone who is ill, or lacks confidence, or has an awful life and is just looking for a moment of merriment. It doesn’t mean they are bad people. Remain calm, I reckon, and don't get involved in cyberscuffles. You might be arguing about the effectiveness of the long throw with a twelve year old who has just raided his dad's cider cupboard.

I say this because, observing GTFC's main messageboards this week, there seems to be a few people who aren't happy with Ian Holloway's recent work.

Yes, things are looking a bit bleaker than a week ago thanks to six goals conceded and none scored in the last two games. Yes, Plymouth could have scored four had their substitute been able to hit an open goal from two yards out. Yes, Town hero James Mckeown seems to have recently become a kind of goalkeeping Santa Claus, kindly handing out presents to any opposing forward who happens to be passing.

But look where we are! We're in mid-table! We're safe! We score goals now, most of the time. We pass the ball to each other. We don't just kazoom the ball somewhere in the vicinity of James Hanson and hope for the best. Even when he's playing!

Holloway is, quite rightly in my view, already looking at next season. He has time to experiment, to observe and to learn. This might mean we get tonked occasionally. It doesn't matter. It's the last day of school. Bring your games in! I've got Kerplunk.

Sooo, deep breaths. Relax. No football team ever wins all of its games. Everything is fine. As long as we beat Scunthorpe, obviously. If we don't, I'm gonna be on those messageboards kicking off big time.