Cod Almighty | Diary

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3 February 2021

Do you know what gets BOTB's goat? People who say Brexit made us a 'divided country.' Grumpy old buggers like me have always lived in a divided country. I've never been able to find any common ground with fox hunters, fly tippers, Tories, murderers and people who put that awful purple shale down in their front gardens.

What's that got to do with football, you may well ask? Well, nothing really. I just wanted to have a go at the purple shale people. I feel better now. On we go.

The Wednesday diary has been a real famine or feast of football news lately. Monday and Tuesday's diaries have been excellent this week and if you haven't already read them I suggest you do for neat summaries of the shenanigans thus far. As usual at this level it is hard to comment on the new players because I know naff all about them, the Shop excepted. They could be great! They could be pants. They could, and most likely will, be decent but not spectacular, because that is the category most professional footballers fall into.

The tsunami of footballers heading into Town leaves us with a bit of a surplus. There are obvious candidates for offloading; if nothing else, we could possibly sell Matt Green for parts. The strangest aspect of the transfer window for me was seeing featherweight Oliver 'Ollie "Runaway" Hollowords' Holloway introductions moving about with teams apparently vying for their signatures. I'll not mention any names, but two midfielders who looked out of their depth on any kind of football pitch have been snapped up by teams much higher in the league than us. I wonder sometimes if agents, scouts and managers are overly influenced by their peer group; once a player has been identified as having the right stuff it can take an awful lot of duff performances before reality sets in. Equally, probably one duffer from Bogle in the non-League and the scouting network decided he wasn't up to scratch, so he had to come here and be legendary for anyone to take notice.

I've not always been the biggest Paul Hurst supporter but one thing he could do was spot players. Matete has been superb so far; and the Adams lad, who I understand was born in Scotland, sounds like the kind of player we need but rarely seem to get; dynamic, competitive, energetic and able to play anywhere. The odds are still very much against us; but we have pretty much a new team now, so maybe it will be better than the old one. Staying up at the expense of Stevenage would be a glorious end to a terrible season and would feel as good as a promotion. So plenty, as the cliche goes, to play for.

Whilst I was looking up the latest on the National League's potential suspension for the season I came across this headline:

Hancock condemns 'pathetic' catcaller after Chris Whitty insulted in street

I know lockdown is hard on lonely single men but catcalling Chris Whitty seems a bit much, slim and gorgeous though he is. Actually it turns out the bloke just kept telling him he was lying about the statistics. Go on Chris, prove him wrong. Get your stats out.

So, the National League are voting whether to carry on, but their system for doing so is so complex I've had to hold an i-seance and ask Steve Jobs how it works. Sadly he was as stumped as I was. So, do we want a catastrophic event for the National League, a host of legal and admin problems for their members and the messy suspension of their season, or do we want to risk going down? Hmmmm. Tricky one. Let's hope the chairmen of the non-League teams are as baffled as me and Jobbsy and tick the wrong boxes. I'll leave it there whilst there is some ambiguity. I'm sure the country is divided on this one, but I suspect the town of Grimsby isn't. Bye for now.