The Diary

Cod Almighty | Diary

It's an ill wind that blows no one any good

13 March 2020

Get out the cigars because Cod Almighty may be about to strike it rich. Every hack on the planet will soon seek-out and pay over the odds for the seminal pamphlet issued to all CA diarists: "Creating content during an international break when your team hasn't got any internationals but your opposition has three Gamibian u-21 internationals and you didn't play the previous weekend either because you lost in the qualifying round of the sodding FA Trophy". I think we stored them away in the loft with Mike Newell and his tee-shirts. 

Premier League arrogance, having consumed and shat out football, football history, competition, and good taste, had a brief chew on a global pandemic before spitting it out. The Football League has taken a similar tack and all games have been suspended until April, starting with tomorrow's now-postponed match against Carlisle. Going down with the ship is tonight's cancelled exiles' evening with Ian Holloway: the Mariners Trust has promised refunds will be issued as soon as possible.

The suspension also puts the kibosh on Paul Thundercliffe's fine piece on Town's prospects for March.

Perhaps those citing the 'Dunkirk spirit', with us Brits bravely and bigly carrying on whilst Johnny Foreigner folds, have had a think about Dunkirk and realised it was actually a sensible retreat to take stock and consider options against a marauding enemy. Not a version that left our boys on the beach to have a kickabout while Jerry tore them to shreds.

The suspension has obviously sparked plenty of conversation. Not all in CA Towers were happy with the decision. Mardy Diary emerged from a pile of empty whisky bottles in the corner to offer his view. He didn't appear to be aware of any virus but declared April wasn't enough and 'the entire shitshow needed stopping for a decade at least, and then altogether after that'. 

What's left for Town, having won our cup final last week, to fill the second half of the season highlights video? (Relax, the first half is not the Chelsea game, it's the epic, but not so epic as to be arsed about extra time so let's have penalties and get this over with, 0-0 against Macclesfield in the previous round.) If the season is null and voided, when we finish consoling the Liverpool fans we will pause and reflect on how our own success at the top of Ceefax Division Four Page Two has been cruelly taken from us.

Who know what the next few weeks and months hold. The only thing certain is that Daubney Diary is pleased not to have to do the Carlisle match preview. I'd taken the schoolboy hoping for a blizzard approach to my homework and only got as far as digging out an ace flashback the local press in Carlisle have shared from our visit in 1980. They had Peter Beardsley and Phil Bonnyman in their team but they never stood a chance against Nigel Batch's massive hair which was like an extra defender on the night. Batchy

Look at that photo, Batchy with no gloves in a proper goalmouth, ace kits, a packed old stand, and even one of those little cars that used to trip the linesman up. So, no game but thanks to Jon Colman for putting that up. He's a guy who stands for absolutely no nonsense on the Football League Trophy and other stuff too so is well worth a follow.  

More Town stuff! Get on the Twitter or Instagram feed of crack photographer Masahide Tomikoshi. He's been sharing rare images of Town's friendly with Japan in 1971. 

If our post-virus lot is to be stuck as division four mid-table fodder, we could certainly jazz things up with some exotic friendlies like that. That's something for Ollie to plot in his free time over the next few weeks. Pre-season is the obvious time for such fixtures but Peter Schmeichel and a chunk of the future Danish Euro 1992 winners visited with Brondby in mid-season. Actually, scratch that, it was Mick Lyons's idea and the game set off a slide down the table to relegation.

Yet more Town stuff! Steve Brierley has dropped us a note to dob in his old employers, the Guardian, for spreading blatant 'no disrespect to to the likes of Grimsby' fodder. Over to you, Steve:

I'm reading the Guardian long read about the Millennium dome and enjoyed this line:

At the 'our town story' zone, schools from around the country were invited to put on performances about their local area. These were strictly limited to 20 minutes each. (Nicolson quotes Robert Warner, the head of the Dome’s live events, as saying at the time that they didn’t want “a three-hour opera about Grimsby”.)

Thanks for that Steve, and also for pointing us to an excellent piece on Town and Ian Holloway that appeared on the Athletic recently. It's behind a paywall but if you're crafty you can sign up for a free trial. In a departure for the Athletic it's an article about the main actors and their actions and not in the style of "the Chilean under-21 team once stayed in a Skegness B&B. We speak to the grandson of the lady who provided their bed linen about the lasting cultural impacts of the tour on the East Lincolnshire B&B scene."

Finally, yesterday Middle-Aged Diary warned of the dangers of a split vote for Charles Vernam and James Hanson in the February player of the month vote. Sponsors seem to have got around this by not only splitting the vote but splitting the polls as well. So, in a great advert for proportional representation at this level, Northampton's Callum Morton nipped in around our two, much as he did our defence when he scored two at Blundell Park to claim the Sky Bet prize. But our SNOS is still able to carol Vernam's triumph in winning the PFA prize. 

Right, we're off to recycle whisky bottles. Stay safe and UTM.