Cod Almighty | Diary

The Nick Drake Special Edition

23 July 2021

Morning, campers. Although I doubt this BOTB diary could be any camper, but there you go. This is the Nick Drake Special Edition, but more on him later.
As pre-season warms up – now just under a month (zzzz) to go – there is Town news a-plenty.

Tomorrow sees GTFC take on Rotherham in James "Macca" Mckeown's testimonial, the first at the club since John "Macca" Mcdermott's in 2006. That's modern football for you. It kicks off at 1.00pm for some reason. That's modern football for you. Macca (the first one) has been responsible for some memorable moments in his career at Town, including some breathtaking and crucial saves. Tomorrow also marks the tenth anniversary of the day he attempted to start growing a beard, and if you go down tomorrow you will get a chance to see how it is coming along.

In the next fortnight the Merging Mighties also put Hyde and Alfreton to the sword, but forget those inconsequential kick-abouts. The big moment for BOTB Diary will be the friendly against Boston on Saturday 7 August. Cruel fingers of fate permitting, this will be my first live Town game since March 2020, and I feel pretty jolly excited at the prospect let me tell you. A terrace! Players! Shouting! Hurrah hooray.

I had this idea to match the actual towns against each other in a Top Trumps type style before the league fixtures this season. This presented a dilemma – which criteria do I use to judge a town and see how it fares against a rival? I decided to base it on the number of people in each town who aren't quite right, because that’s always been the way I personally judge a place. Luckily the World Health Organisation (Dr WHO) has a long established technique of establishing how many people in a location aren't quite right which I will use in the following table (all numbers per 100,000).

So, who fares best in the battle of the Lincolnshire settlements? Let's take a look and see.

Well, the inaugural Town Top trumps reveals that Grimsby is clearly the winner, and I cannot pretend that a feeling of pride is not surging within my bosom. I would do this again, but I suspect that my P45 is already in the post, so it may very well be the last.

So, the Nick Special Drake Edition. For the youngsters, Nick Drake was a British singer and songwriter who was active in the early 1970s. At the age of 26 he tragically killed himself by overdosing on antidepressants. As we know many rock stars have famously met their maker at the age of 27, but poor Nick didn't even make it that far. Incidentally, these 26/27 year suicides provoke one question: what is it about being 28 that rock stars don't like? I wish I was 28, as I bet do most of the readers of this diary. In fact, are there any CA diary readers under 28? On second thoughts, forget I asked that question. It sounds like I'm grooming you.

Where was I? Oh yes. Nick Drake's family have always claimed his death was an accident, although reading my recommended book of the week All the Madmen by Clinton Haylin suggests that this is fanciful. After all, he had hardly spoken a word to a soul for several weeks before his death and was by all accounts clearly a man on the edge. Bizarrely, he had a sister called Gabrielle who was known mostly for taking her top off in low-budget British "sex" "comedies" although she later gained greater fame in the Brothers, various soap operas and as Kelly Monteith's wife in the Canadian's eponymous comedy show. And you thought your family was interestingly odd.

Now why do I mention Nick Drake in a GTFC Diary? Well, I've forgotten. It was so long ago that I had the idea to talk about him I have no idea why it seemed like such a good idea in the first place. I have a vague inkling that it was something to do with inspiration, as Drake inspired my favourite lyricist Mark Eitzel who in my opinion surpassed the former. But for the life of me, as forgetful old people always say, I can't place which GTFC star I was thinking about and why it seemed relevant. But go and listen to Pink Moon anyway for some fragile, fractured songs that exude a melancholy Englishness and may very well break your heart.

Team news, blah blah blah. UTM. Football football football.

Next week: Syd Barrett!