Cod Almighty | Diary

Grims-by Grims-by! A helluva town!

20 January 2021

BOTB Diary writes: The Dock Tower's up but the football team's down. We're never gonna get a new ground, oh yes we are! Cos Fenty's left Town!

At 8pm last night I decided I was going to start this diary by sticking the verbal Doc Martin into Cambridge, one of those teams who always seem to lose when you want them to win and win when you want them to lose. Luckily, however, they put on their special Christmas present footbally boots for the second half, snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, and prevailed over Southend who remain safely below us. Good ol' Cambridge. Won't hear a word against them.

Incidentally, it's interesting to know that defeat has jaws. Doubt it will manage to see a dentist soon though. Not with the lockdown and that defeatist attitude it has.

20th January, 2021. Dear diary,

Have. Gone. Mad.

Well, it's the middle of winter, it is pissing down with rain, Town are second bottom of the league and Toll Bar roundabout has shut for a week. What is more, most of our human rights and liberties have been taken away from us while the government tries to free the place of a deadly virus. I've got to be honest. Things have looked better.

Still. Mustn't grumble. What's happening? Oh yes. I think I can safely say, without exaggeration, that Saturday brings the biggest, most importantest football match in the history of football. Yes, it is the Scunts versus the Mighties, the battle of the potential relegation candidates. Never, in the field of conflict, have 22 mediocre footballers playing in an empty shithole of a stadium meant so much to so few. A victory would give us - and by us I mean grumpy, pessimistic old me - genuine hope that we could survive. A defeat: well... ooh dear. I'm not even going to entertain the possibility of defeat. I have my therapist on speed dial. I'm a bit nervous.

Signings are still rather thin on the ground, as is the grass on our ground. No, that didn't make sense, but it is in the past now, move on. We have strengthened defensively but, my dear, where are the goals going to come from? I simply cannot see them happening, unless there are an awful lot of set-piece shenanigans going on at Cheapside. I'm sure plucky little Grimsby Town manager Paul Hurst is working on it, and phoning striker-players, and giving long interviews to the radio, as we speak. Though he be but little he is fierce. That's your actual Shakespeare, that is. Nearly. Don't look it up.

There is an interesting thread on the Fishy at the moment - no, stop tittering, there is - about people who live in Grimsby, are from Grimsby, but support other teams. The general consensus seems to be that this is a bad thing and should be discouraged. I'm pretty hardline on this matter, and I am prepared to say this: if you are from Grimsby, but support a Premiership team, I am better than you. If that Premiership team is Leeds, my garden shed is better than you. You need to re-evaluate every aspect of your life. You're a wrong 'un. A bad hat. A rotten egg. You are duff, and there's no call for you. Remember, if BOTB diary is looking down on you for your life choices, things are bleak, because I'm hardly standing in an elevated position.

I suspect the above is widely thought but rarely said aloud. You know, we all have to be nice to each other, and decent human beings, in order for what's left of society to function. But, what the heck. Let the truth be told though the heavens thunder. Grimsby Whites? Grimsby Wongs, more like. Yes, I know, clever stuff. Cheers.

Which brings me nicely onto the big family of football bollocks. This season has confirmed what I have always suspected - that lower-league football without in-stadium fan rivalry is like Mrs Brown's Boys without Mrs Brown. No, hear me out. Mrs Brown's Boys is bloody awful, right, and we know that if we switched channels to BBC Four and watched a documentary about Edvard Munch it would be more edifying, educational, classy and worthwhile. But that bloke who plays Mrs. Brown (the CA research team is currently running it through their computer systems trying to find out his name) undoubtedly has some charisma and is quite an engaging performer. Now imagine how bad it would be without him? He is literally the only reason anyone would watch that sorry morass of fat arse. That is why Mrs Brown's Boys gets more viewers than documentaries about Munch, this is why lower league football exists and there is a market for it, because it doesn't matter how bad the product is, there is something there that brings you in and grabs you, and that something in football's case is tribalism. Even if they could survive financially for three years without fans, any team below the championship would go out of business in that time if grounds remained empty, because everyone would lose interest. I'm sure of it. Have I managed to express that clearly? I don't know why I'm bothering with this convoluted analogy, to be honest. I don't even have a telly.

So. Anyroad up.  Grimsby, Grimsby. A hell of a town. Bit ambiguous, when you think about it. Still. UTM. Come 1300 hours on Saturday I'll be listening from behind the sofa.*

*People famously watched Dr Who from behind the sofa in the 1970s. What were they scared of? It wasn't like the Daleks were going to win, was it?**

**"We have exterminated the Doctor! Next week at the same time it will be Jim'll Fix it! Suck it up Earthlings!"