Cod Almighty | Diary
Though he be but little, he is fierce...
21 May 2021
Hello. It’s BOTB Diary here, shouting into the empty end-of-season news bucket and trying to form a diary from the echoes. You liked that sentence, didn't you? Yeeeesss. I knew you would. Sadly, it goes downhill faster than Franz Klammer from now on.
Yesterday, the Diary they are all calling Deviant suggested that if they ever made Mark Stilton’s epic Fenty Saga – like the Forsyte Saga but with more orange juice - into a movie, it might be a struggle to find an actor with the total lack of charisma needed for the role. The chosen one would also have to have a total of one facial expression and cold, dead eyes that could possibly be actual portals to the underworld. Assuming the plastic shark from Jaws is no longer available, it occurred to me that there might be an old action man figure that fitted the bill. Unfortunately this train of thought led me to these pictures...
... and for a couple of minutes I entirely lost concentration and forgot what I was doing, or that I was writing in a Grimsby Town fanzine, or that John Fenty even existed. Which was actually quite a nice feeling. Incidentally, the last one is looking that way because he has "Eagle Eyes". Presumably this particular eagle had just noticed he hadn't emptied the dishwasher like he said he would, and Mrs Eagle was due back from work in two minutes.
Summer is of course the time for transfer speculation. My diary last week, which discussed various negative aspects of non-League life, soon achieved leper status amongst other CA writers who considered it to be the verbal equivalent of free horse manure left outside a gate. Undeterred, I’m going to moan about another aspect of non-League life which is that the names of the players we will be buying this summer won't mean anything to anyone, so most speculation will be just screaming words into the void. Some signings will be good, some will be OK and some will be bobbins, but there is no way of knowing until 21 August.
Sometime in mid-June.
"Hey! We've signed Michael Lard from Weymouth. Apparently he is a hard-working midfielder who likes a tackle!"
"Yay! Bring on the new season!"
"There’s more! John Splod is coming from Bath City! He's a full back with a bit of pace!"
"I have exploded! I have actually exploded with excitement!"
Strikers are a little bit different because they have some kind of consultable record of how good they are at their jobs. But even this can be misleading. Who among us – be honest now – was thrilled when we bought Podge? Who thought that buying Hearn and Bogle from even lower divisions was a big risk that might not have come off? When you buy a player at a certain level of lowness, you just don't know. The days when we could buy Whymark, or Futcher, or D'Wayne Fandango, or Birtles – players with faultless pedigrees you have actually heard of – are sadly gone. There may be a show-reel of John Splod putting in some nice crosses and a decent tackle against Bakewell Trinity but it will tell us nothing.
Even the reputation a player has among fans of his former club can mislead. I remember Matt Heywood coming from Brentford, being a much-loved and highly respected player of the year for the Londoners, and being a waste of shorts for us. So watch the cricket this summer. Learn about butterflies. Take up crown green bowling. Give crack a try. Life goes quickly, and your new heroes and villains will be revealed with the passage of time.
Anything else? Well, I asked my mate Dean if he had any more amusing football stories, but he said he didn't.
A few weeks ago the fondly remembered Retro Diary, whose diaries are still quoted at the gatherings of the wise around the time of the full moon, said something helpful and encouraging to me. "It's OK twittering on about nonsense" he intoned, gravely, "but sooner or later you are going to have to have some actual content." I think this diary proves I have taken his words to heart.
UTM