Cod Almighty | Diary

Saturday Night at the Movies

19 October 2020

Miss Guest Diary writes: Well, I finally cracked at the weekend and watched the Town game on iFollow, more of which later.

What caused this U-turn, I hear you ask. Partly it was due to watching the highlights of the brilliant victory at Cheltenham and realising that I wouldn't be able to pick most of the Town players out of a line up. I feared that by the time I could actually attend a game it would feel like watching someone else's team.

Then there was the season ticket letter from the club which arrived on Friday: I was thrilled to see that I had been allocated a seat in the Pontoon. There is an invitation to "see the view from your seat" by visiting the ticket office on a weekday. I am sorely tempted, just to get into Blundell Park again, but as my allocation is literally next to the seat I have occupied for the last 22 seasons, I don't think I'd get away with it.

The letter also talked about the revenue which the club gets from iFollow subscriptions, including away games. Apparently, they made £4,000 from the 1,095 Town fans who watched the game at Walsall. As Town wouldn't normally get any revenue from away games, that seems like a real bonus and important for keeping the club afloat. Something that I decided I want to help with.

I duly paid my £10 on Saturday morning for the Leyton Orient game. Then came the challenge of getting it onto the TV. I knew that I couldn't get it to stream directly through the TV, having tried in the past to watch highlights that way, but I was adamant I wouldn't watch the game on a laptop or tablet. Not being very tech-savvy I resorted to the internet [Daubney Diary can't believe you didn't use the super savvy CA iFollow guide - Ed] and discovered there is an app which allows you to 'cast' content from a tablet to the TV. I duly downloaded the app and tried it out. It worked straight away but, alas, the pictures were a bit jerky. Probably OK for watching a film but definitely not for 90 minutes of hot football action.

The only solution was the laptop/HDMI cable route. It was easy to link the two but, frustratingly, I was only to be able to see my desktop picture on the TV screen and nothing else. More Googling was required [Daubney Diary is now crying in the corner. He hasn't been this upset since Slade II - Ed]. Where would we be without it these days? I bet you can learn brain surgery from YouTube. The solution was found and it was all systems go.

The picture was perfect even if the experience wasn't. I much prefer to watch games from behind the goal and, as expected, I hated the commentary. I don't want two blokes telling me what I'm seeing. Maybe it will be better when John Tondeur is one of those blokes, but I suspect not. But it felt wonderful to be watching Town again, even if I did struggle at times to tell which player was which – and the result was perfect. I will definitely be back tomorrow evening for the Harrogate game.

As for getting back into Blundell Park, following a petition to allow supporters to return to grounds which received 196,000 signatures, the Government are due to debate the issue on 9 November. That just happens to be my birthday; a positive outcome to the debate would be the best birthday present ever, as long as it doesn't coincide with North East Lincolnshire being plonked in Tier 3. UTM