Cod Almighty | Diary

Some people are on the piss! They think it's all over! It isn't now!

24 March 2021

For BOTB Diary - that's me that is - writing this diary is a bit like being a priest about to give the last rites when you suddenly notice the corpse is checking the racing results and smoking a pipe. Last week I had given up all hope, but this week I've only given up approximately 96 per cent of it. We are still seven points clear at the bottom of the bottomest division, with ten games to play, yet last night's victory at Barrow has led to a flicker of optimism within my bosom. And, yes, a man can have a bosom. Indeed after a year of lockdown, many of us have.

On Saturday we play Walsall. Now, if we can beat Walsall, and Southend and Barrow fail to win, relegation suddenly stops looking like a foregone conclusion and the bottom of the division starts to look like a wheelbarrow full of panicking rabbits being pushed towards an abattoir door. And, in that situation, as we all know, anything can happen.

There was no reason why we shouldn't have beaten Barrow. Anyone who watches the highlights of the games will know that their much vaunted run of four victories was in part due to some interesting defending from their opponents. Their second against Cheltenham, for example, came when the Chelt's goalkeeper suddenly forgot he was allowed to use his hands at a crucial moment. Their 96th minute winner against Crawley came direct from a corner which was allowed to cross the line after several defenders leapt out of its way. This is a poor division in which atrocious goals are often conceded. Indeed, in the early part of the season it was usually our defence performing said atrocities. Small margins, brownian motion, brute bad luck, all have a part to play, and if the football gods do start to favour us, we have a tiny chance, a chink of light, a shining, glowing dot in the distance growing ever brighter.

Or we could lose to Walsall and we're completely buggered again. Hey ho.

There are reasons for optimism though. Firstly, plucky little Grimsby Town manager Paul Hurst did not decide to take off an attacker and bring on a defender when we took the lead last night. It's taken a while for the penny to drop, now we just have to hope he doesn't notice something deceptively shiny on the pavement and try to pick it up again*. Secondly, in the last two games we have scored a couple of rather lovely goals. Williamseses's free kick against Mansfield was an underrated strike of great beauty, and Spokeseses's shot last night was so well placed it even managed to silence the brick wall behind the Barrow goal. Things like this give the team confidence and make you, the fan, remember why you loved being a Grimsby Town supporter in the first place. Mrs BOTB always tells me I'd have had a happier life if I didn't follow football, and she has a point. But I would also have missed a good deal of that rarest thing in life, pure elation.

Finally, a word about positivity. Now, I'm absolutely happy to accept that four or five thousand Town fans in a football ground can have a massive effect on a football match, encouraging the team, cowering opponents, terrifying the ref and creating a sense of communal purpose and joy. I'm less convinced that @smithy127_mariners_ writing the words "come on town you can do it!!1!!!" on Facebook has the same effect. Yet so great is the need for fans to feel they can still affect the result themselves that many have been doing just that. It's quite touching in a way, which is why I'd like to finish with these words.

"Listen up, Grimsby Town people. It is possible for you to avoid relegation. You mean a great deal to a great deal of people and we would be delighted if you manage to stay up. Please give it everything you have. And if you avoid relegation, I , BOTB Diary, pledge to buy every one of you a Terry's Chocolate Orange."

And that is how you motivate a team using the internet. Well, it would motivate me, but then I am a greedy fat knacker.

*You should never pick a penny up off the pavement. It might have been used to scrape dog dirt off somebody's shoe. A pound coin might be worth it, but not a penny. Think!