Cod Almighty | Diary

Fwuit twee, fwuit twee, no-one loves you but the wain

11 June 2021

Well-a-well-a-well-a-well, tell me more, tell me more, BOTB Diary. It's been an exciting week for both the mighty Cod Almighty Institution and the little Grimsby Town Football Club which follows in its wake. Or the other way round. Firstly part three of Mark Stilton’s epic Fenty saga was published to universal acclaim, followed by the Town Butcher firmly filleting Fenty’s financial and fiduciary tomfoolery. It's fishmongers who fillet of course, not butchers, but that would have ruined the alliteration. Sometimes truth is the enemy of art. Anyway, read 'em and weep.

So, now the Town are footloose and Fenty-free, what have they started doing? Only signing players, that's what. Signing young players at that. The new brooms may have realised that signing players in their 30s is a great idea for the Shaunmower, because we love him and he's dreamy, but financially it is a dead end. If promising youngsters fulfil their promise they end up making money for the club as well as powering up the footy team with their youthful elan (cliché), whereas the elderly player, good or bad, tends to fade away into the mist like a doddery cyclist in Stallingborough.

First on the signings conveyor belt was Scunnybunny John McAtee. "If he finds the onion net he'll do for me!" says "Rilariley1" in the Telewag. Wise words! Not the right words, obviously, but still wise. Particularly if you've just lost an onion net.

This signing was quickly followed by another, right-back Ryan Sears from the Shrewsberries. Let's hear what he has to say: "We're a club that are going to go back in the right direction. I think that they are a bigger club than the league that they are in, they are definitely a League Two side." Whoah, whoah, whoah. Whoah. Hold your horses there, Skippy. You think that Grimsby are a bigger club than the Bananarama? They are definitely a League Two side? You do know that we were top of the Championship during your lifetime, do you?

Oh, you don't. You can't blame him. Anyone under the age of about 25 now thinks we're a club of the size and status of Macclesfield. That is the real legacy of the Fenty years. Under his appalling mismanagement we have gone from one of the 40 most successful teams in England and Wales to being an East Midlands Dagenham & Redbridge. Although, as Philipe Noche so brilliantly pointed out in a Fishy post I refer to from time to time, the problem with Grimsby fans is they will insist on judging a club by its league position.

Also crack midfielder Giles Coke has resigned, as one of my friends texted me, causing me a momentary shock. A nicely placed hyphen in "re-signed" would have been better for my mental health. Good news all round.

More breaking news. In a quite unexpected move, France's President Emmanuel Macron has become Town's new kit supplier. That might seem like a slap in the face to all the other competing fashion brands, but c'est la vie and sacre bleu et Monsieur Fromage. Some thought the Errea kit was dire (geddit?!?), so let's hope the Gallic supremo can...

Oh no, hang on, Macron is an Italian brand of whom I have never heard, But you know, Italy. They don't dress like last of the Summer Wine characters in Milan, you know. And they already do some middling clubs like Nottingham Forest and Stoke, so coolness ahoy, great tops, great gear, indie bands, summer, lads, lads, lads. I have no idea what I'm talking about.

Even more news! GTFC have partnered with In-play Sports and will be using their cloud-based video analysis software next season! Ooooh, cloud-based! Like God! Must be good. And it uses XML files! How can we lose?

The Telewag yesterday led with the hilarious new design for the Suggitt's Lane crossing, which, resembling nothing so much as than the guntowers at Stalag Vll-A (research), has gone down badly with locals. In the old days they would have built any old shit and Grimsby would have had to put up with it, but there is a new feeling in the air and I believe we will get something better.

We are a town on the way up. Our football team is using cloud-based software, our new owner wears the kind of trendy glasses they wear in That London, Oxfordshire, some of our schools now have the word "Academy" in their title and Nunsthorpe Library is called "Centre4!" We want promotion, we want a pretty bridge, we want to be treated with respect and we want to be free to have a good time. Now, if only we could find that onion net! Where is that confounded onion net?!?

PS. I was going to talk about Nick Drake, hence the title, but there was a news Krakatoa. So substitute your own more relevant title if you want. Don't be rude, though, I'm sensitive.