Cod Almighty | Diary

It's coming home

14 June 2021

Miss Guest Diary writes: It's finally here! No, not the Euros – more of them later – but the season ticket information pack. I didn't actually need to see it to know I would be signing up again for next season, but it makes the prospect of finally returning to Blundell Park a little more real. But then I felt the same last summer, and look how that turned out.

As someone with a decent pension and only myself to cater for, I don't feel qualified to comment on how likely the deals and discounts on offer are to draw in new fans but, in my eyes, £14.78 per game (before any discounts are applied) for a seat in the Pontoon stacks up well against £14.40 for a cinema trip in Lincoln or £15 to visit a local stately home or £21 to watch a 20-over cricket match at Trent Bridge.

The announcement of two more pre-season games – at Alfreton and Boston – has also got me excited. I've checked and Bluey's, the Australian bar in Alfreton, is still trading and should be open in time for our visit there on 3 August. I'm just hoping they still do those tasty burgers.

We have to wait till next weekend to find out who will be claiming the second promotion spot into the League, but we do know it won't be Notts County or Stockport County, who both lost in the play-off semis at the weekend. Shame for them but good for me. The former because it's my nearest game and a great awayday; the latter is simple schadenfreude. I have a friend who supports Stockport and he has been unable to resist commenting regularly on the prospect of his team replacing mine in the League. Ha!

Back to the Euros. I have to confess that Mr Butcher and I are somewhat fanatical with the World Cup and the Euros in that, starting with Italia90, we have watched the TV coverage of virtually every match played. We even rewatched the entirety of Euro 96 when it was on iPlayer last summer.

Over the years this has involved taking time off work, leaving the office early or arriving late and, of course, recording games to watch later. The most convoluted time I recall was during France 98 when the afternoon matches used to start about an hour before we could make it home. So we had two video recorders going (young people, ask your parents), one to tape the first half which we would start watching as soon as we got in, the other recording the second half. This way we could see the afternoon match before the evening game started and the pundits gave away the score of the earlier game.

This last year the only way anyone could see football has been on the TV which left me thoroughly fed up and definitely not looking forward to Euro 2020 at all. I bought my wall chart several weeks ago but I had no intention of actually watching many games. This stance was maintained on Friday. We went to a cricket match instead of watching Italy v Turkey, not even bothering to record the game and just watching 10 minutes of highlights when we got home.

Of course, we just had to see how Wales did on Saturday afternoon, and then it happened – about two minutes into the game we saw the hairstyle of the Swiss full-back, Mbabu. Of course! The enjoyment we get from football championships is rarely about the actual football: it's the bad hair, the ghastly shirt designs, the cool names, the idiotic goal celebrations and the odd pronouncements from the pundits. I'm sure you've all got those sort of memories; we've certainly got dozens in this household. Not least the time Kevin Keegan claimed that Junior Baiano's chest was as big as the ones pirates keep their gold in.

And Ally McCoist has morphed into Spud from Trainspotting - I’m looking forward to a summer of pleasure from other people's leisure.