Cod Almighty | Diary

The Gruesome Twosome

20 July 2021

"Our two National League fixtures against Southend United have been switched to a Friday night." Crikey, that'll be some evening. Middle-Aged Diary guesses that the first will kick off about four, be done and dusted by six, then everyone hot-foots it to the coaches and the cars so the second game can get going at nine-ish.

Better warn the Police and the AA that the players, staff and supporters of Grimsby and Southend will be re-enacting an episode of the Wacky Races on the A1. Or one of those films set in the early days of motor sport, with Southend manager Phil Brown as the smooth guy who reckons he's the surefire winner, last seen smiling thinly as Paul Hurst's little two-stroke rattles past the smoking wreck of his tourer.

... ah, hold it, they mean the games will be played on two separate Friday nights.

Southend claim the rearrangements mean that "Roots Hall will host at least one popular Friday night game next season". There's a faint whiff of corporate bullshit about that insertion of "popular", but their tweet of the announcement did get 50 "likes", so I could be wrong. That is twice the number of likes they got for reporting that their under-18 team had been narrowly beaten in a nine-goal thriller.

Grimsby's own official site gives no reason why we have to play a not necessarily "popular Friday night game" at Blundell Park. Perhaps it is an experiment. Perhaps it is to keep travelling costs down. But people do have their routines and rituals around a Saturday afternoon which they will miss. And travelling fans will have to make the decision whether to take time off work to get to Southend in time for an evening kick-off. It would do the club no harm to treat their supporters like adults and explain the thinking.

The time was when Southend's home games were usually on a Friday night. I waxed lyrical about one of those Friday's once before. Miss Guest Diary had a drier take on the occasion (although it was not a night for keeping dry.)

No travel disruption for fans, and certainly no epiphanies, this afternoon when Town take on Mansfield in a friendly being played behind closed doors. The Football League programme starts a couple of weeks before the Conference, and while we have just had one run-out against Cleethorpes, this will be the Stags' third warm-up game. If you are lucky enough to have any hair, keep it on if the Mariners take a bit of a tonking.