Cod Almighty | Diary

Say yes to The Hess!

11 March 2020

Miss Guest Diary writes: Cod Almighty's match reporter summed up Saturday's game against Scunthorpe as "Two bald men fighting over an invisible comb". On one level he is right: neither team has any realistic prospect of either relegation or promotion this season, and the football was quite poor at times.

But that is to ignore the essentially tribal nature of football. How having possession of that invisible comb at the expense of a near neighbour can feel massively important, especially if you live in the area. Every day we are being bombarded with bad news about global strife, climate catastrophe and deadly viruses, not to mention the more local issues of austerity, flooding and the predicted collapse of the NHS. Winning a local derby and taking the honours, no matter how negligible, can make the world feel a brighter place for while.

It was the prospect of this fierce rivalry which almost kept me away from Saturday's game. I missed the FA Cup game in 2013, so the last time I went to Glanford Park for a proper match was in 2004. The atmosphere that day was fairly torrid and that was before social media began to play its part in hyping up rivalries.

In recent years my experiences of local derbies have been the matches at Sincil Bank, where Town fans have been located adjacent to the most rabid of the Lincoln support. I have found the toxic atmosphere this has generated hard to bear – so much so that I didn't go the last time Town played there. In the event, Saturday was a pleasant surprise. The bulk of the home fans were safely corralled on the terrace at the other end of the pitch and the noise at our end was so great that I couldn't tell what, if anything, the Scunny fans were chanting.

It would probably even have been bearable if Town had lost – but fortunately I didn't have to find that out. It was a great experience and a great result.

I was surprised that Ollie didn't come out onto the pitch to celebrate with us – he was so low profile that I thought he might not even have been at the game. His comments to John Tondeur afterwards about not gloating or over-celebrating may explain his absence. Or it may be that, having insulted Scunny's striker after the home game in December, he was embarrassed to have that insult turned into a chant which was sung pretty constantly on Saturday. Who knows?

I have made no secret of the fact that my current favourite player at Town is Jake Hessenthaler. So it was pleasing to learn of his return to fitness, playing for just over an hour in yesterday’s 2-0 win by the reserves at Mansfield.

I am less thrilled at the prospect of a 'Ladies Day' at Blundell Park on Saturday. Having followed Town for 30 years and been a season ticket holder for the last 22, I am feeling more than a little patronised. By all means celebrate the remarkable success of the newly-formed Grimsby Town women's team, but please don't turn female fans into some kind of special group who need incentives to attend games. Some hot water in the ladies toilets wouldn't go amiss, though – even Scunny can manage that. UTMM.