Cod Almighty | Diary

More words

17 July 2020

"Audiences in stadiums" is a strange form of words. "He's behind you" we'll shout, as a Newey-esque full back completely fails to track his winger, and "Oh yes you did" when an opposing centre half denies tripping Max Wright in the penalty area. Or perhaps it'll be like classical music, applause at the end of a movement a huge faux pas, just a few coughs to celebrate every goal.

Middle-Aged Diary will celebrate the return of spectator sport when it happens. Which is also when we can celebrate the signings of players with fire and brimstone. Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think even Russell Slade said his strategy was to sign old hacks looking for one last payday.

The best thing you can do is go read Avril Taylor's memories of her mother, Dorothy Edwards, the first female Club Secretary in the Football League, and relish the humanity of some great names in football enjoying a night at the cinema or worrying about their spots. Failing that, I guess I'd better clear up matters arising from yesterday's diary.

The quote provided was actually written in 1927-28, when Town were in their second season back in Division Two after six seasons in the third flight, and the season before they won promotion to Division One. That leaves Rob McIlveen with the best of the guesses we saw. If only we'd arranged with the Mariners Trust to make the prize a copy of Champions!, signed by the author.

You were obviously meant to hear the echoes from around 1994 when Alan Buckley's first Grimsby side were outplaying (but not always beating) richer clubs in the second flight. But not even the Daily Telegraph was writing quite like that by the end of the 20th century. It does though open up the question how much a football club has a personality that is passed on through the ages.

Perhaps it is not so much how we play but what we choose to celebrate about our club that creates a sense of tradition. I might just as easily have chosen this quote, also from 1927-28. “Grimsby Town… are anything but a clever side, but their hard bustling methods and their persistence in cut and thrust tactics enabled them to win... [Joe] Robson, who is a robust, awkward, but exceedingly forceful centre-forward, won this game for Grimsby. He scored three minutes before the interval and again well into the second half. This latter goal was netted in a blizzard which blinded Barrett so that he missed his kick, and so let the centre-forward through... The Nottingham defenders got through a lot of work, but not in their usual clean-cut style. Often the backs just scrambled the ball away. The same applies to Grimsby, who on the whole were a most ungainly set of players... The enthusiasm when the home team scored was astonishing. It might have been a cup final!”

That passage has a distinct hint of "no disrespect to the likes of Grimsby" about it. We can be proud of that too.

Have a good weekend.