Cod Almighty | Diary

Whatever happens, there's always fish and chips

6 March 2020

The Mariners have made some long treks to far-flung places in our recent past, owing to our days in non-League when we visited towns like Dover, Eastbourne and Bognor Regis.

Long journeys still exist, of course — it was only three days ago that just over 200 Town fans made the trip to Plymouth — but the match at Glanford Park tomorrow is our closest possible away game. And unless Cleethorpes Town earn four promotions while we stay exactly where we are, it’s likely to remain that way.

Your West Yorkshire Diary was born in March 1983. As someone who is now in his mid-30s, and whose earliest memory of a Town game is when Garry Birtles scored a hat-trick against Wrexham, I don't have any strong feelings about the Iron. We played them twice in the 1989-90 season but they pre-date that 5-1 win over Wrexham, and since then we've only spent one season in the same division. I just haven't had time or reason to get angry about them.

The same goes for Lincoln, I guess. We played them a couple of times when Keith Alexander was their manager — once in the fourth division play-offs — but by that point my idea of a derby was set on the bigger teams like Barnsley, the two Sheffield clubs and even Huddersfield (not that they'd have seen it that way, I suspect). By the time we were playing the Imps in local derbies over Christmas and New Year in non-League, well, it just felt a bit contrived — to me, at least.

But tomorrow's match takes on extra significance because it falls on my birthday. As a child I remember us losing at home to Barnsley on my ninth birthday, and a couple of years later we lost at home to Derby after a birthday trip to Panda’s Palace in Skegness.

But I distinctly remember us winning at Southend on my 15th birthday because I got a shout-out on Radio Humberside, which my parents arranged. Daryl Clare scored the only goal of the game and, strangely, two years later repeated the trick in a 1-0 win over Wolves at Blundell Park on my 17th birthday.

The time we beat Lincoln 5-1 — when Adam Proudlock remained sober enough to score a hat-trick — happened on my 26th birthday, and five years ago we won 2-1 at Woking. In the 10 matches Town have played on 7 March since 1983, we’ve won five and lost five.

For those of you of a certain vintage, you may remember the 1982-83 season as one that Town were doing really well in, then we shit the bed around — you guessed it — 7 March. Well, it was the end of February, but don't let the details spoil a decent narrative. Now, I'm not saying I’m personally to blame for our 14-game winless run to end that season, but I have considered switching my pseudonym to Jonah Diary on the account that I have a pretty terrible record of seeing Town win in recent seasons. I won't go into it now because we're already feeling sensitive after back-to-back 3-0 defeats, but surely my luck has to change some time. I think we're all hoping it's tomorrow.

To make us all feel better about it, I was at Glanford Park when we won 2-1 in the FA Cup a few seasons back, so I know what it's like to see us win at Scunny. A repeat performance would be nice, but that depends on what team Holloway selects and whether we're not too deflated from those two defeats.

I don't blame Ollie for his rest-and-rotation policy, given he's still relatively new to this squad and has had to deal with injuries to key players while making a few additions of his own. However, we don't want to stray too far into Bignot Bingo territory as he was supposedly given a similar remit but really fucked it up at home to Donny that time with a bizarre team selection and a 5-1 defeat. A lot of fans switched off that day and it gave the board the perfect opportunity to get him out and bring the teacher off that mountain and back to the BP.

Tomorrow's game might be a dead rubber, with both sides going absolutely nowhere this season and in indifferent form. But as far as the fans are concerned, league circumstances don't matter; it's more like a cup tie and this deserves our strongest team. I'm sure Ollie will know all this and agree, so his starting XI tomorrow will be revealing.

If you're lucky enough to have a ticket for the match tomorrow, remember the game kicks off at 1pm. Enjoy the atmosphere, enjoy the game — and happy birthday to me (and Jordan Pickford, and Mathieu Flamini, and Hatem Ben Arfa). UTMM!