Cod Almighty | Postbag

The Postbag: brilliant, batty, and brilliantly batty

2 February 2009

With the help of some illicit substances (or Bovril, at least) you have excelled yourselves this fortnight, so let's run these with the mimimum of comment, and just say keep them coming. Lots below to inspire you.

JPKK and Town's great midfielders

Hi CA

Let's not get carried away after Town's fantastic win at Wycombe on Saturday - OK just a bit then.

A thought occurred, particularly after JP was named CA's Man of the Match again- is it too early to suggest that he should be considered alongside those other Master Mariners who donned the Black & White?

You know who I'm thinking of - Jeff Whitefoot, Ron Cockerill, Lew Chatterley, Joe Waters (another JW!!), Dave Boylen and Paul Groves, all of whom took the helm so masterfully and steered the Mariners to famous victories on so many occasions?

Perhaps it's a bit premature but Jean-Paul Kamudimba Kalala could be thought of as one of Town's favourite sons if the season turns around as we all hope it will.

UTM

from Alan Dickens

Great Grimsby

When did Grimsby Town change their name? And which name should be used?

Should it be "struggling Grimsby" as most of the daily papers used, or "lowly Grimsby" as used by a bloke who does Countdown as a day job?

I hate to gloat but even a guru of all things that can win, tried to claim 80 quid off me because his bet went down. He was even less happy when I told him he could have covered his bet by taking Town at 7-1 to win.

Times may be hard but there may be light at the end of the tunnel. I can't wait for the name to be changed back to MIGHTY GRIMSBY

from Keith Falla

T-shirts

Dear postbag,

It is true; Whittle has long gone; so has Buckley. Do you have any ideas for a new T-shirt? Come on Town on are on the up and you could clean up! Whether you make money or not, I think it is time for an uplifting T-shirt, surfing the bow wave of the good ship Newell.

UTM always

from Dave Kirk

Letters Ed responds: The T-shirt department are in a wrong sort of snow mode, and finding it easier to think about overcoats, but they are mulling over some ideas.

The missing left side

Hello postbag

First time I've written in, but Martin Robinson's e-mail about Stoke vs. Town in 91 brought back all sorts of memories.

The years may well have clouded my memories a little, but my memory of the pitch invasion was that it seemed pretty pre-planned (some kind of revenge for quite a bit of aggro at BP earlier that season?). I think it was midway through the Second half when a few hundred of the Potteries finest oiks piled over the fence and ran the length of the pitch to confront a couple of thousand Town fans. Despite our somewhat less than perfect record at big matches (Halifax the year before when a hundred or so got in without paying and then smashed up a burger van, and then Chesterfield!), there didn't seem to be much of a response. I guess even the most loutish of Town fans aren't that stupid!

However my biggest memory is that because we were attacking the home end and the tunnel was down our right wing, our 2 left sided players (Jobling and Gilbert?) got stranded by the pitch invasion and had to hide in the bottom of the stand opposite the tunnel. Only when the police pushed the remaining Stoke fans back to the halfway line, did our left sided duo hop over the advertising boards and leg it back to the dressing rooms. Players going missing during a game doesn't seem that strange now bearing in mind the last few seasons!

Anyway, we hung on for the draw, ran the gauntlet through the car park behind the away end and made it back to the buses to be escorted round the Stoke ring road in the longest convoy of coaches and mini-buses I have ever seen.

If the years have clouded my memory then feel free to correct me, but 17 years of not much joy following Town begin to take its toll.

Up the Mariners

from Alan Richardson

Everything you wanted to know about Bovril, but were too ashamed to ask

Being born in this country, but immersed and brought up in my own culture, I sometimes see the little oddities that make up Britain.

You see, my son "came out" at one of Town's games! Yes I know it threw me as well. I take my own coffee Thermos to games. Instead of him bringing back a tea or insipid coffee, he brought back a BOVRIL!

Bovril!? Of course I knew about it. Every football stadium reeked like a cow rendering factory, but I've never had it in the house, so how come he's just decided to "like it".

Unless of course my wife made it for the kids whilst I was at work, telling them not to sprag on her 'cos it's a "British thing, and daddy wouldn't understand" I figured it was part of the British DNA to drink this stuff.

So the next time I was an English house (100% not a 50% like ours), when I was offered "something to drink", I asked for a Bovril.

"Bovril? Can you buy it? Sorry no Bovril." "Oh! I see, I'll have some tea then."

Now they were Yorkies, so I tried it out on a Yellerbelly family (proper English).

"Bovril please." "Bovril????? Can you buy it?..." etc Yes, and when fans watch England play in the Euros (when you do qualify that is) its never Bovril, but 6 packs and pizza! So what is it about this Bovril? You drink, but you don't have it in the house. Is it, you know, dirty... Does anyone have it in the home? Do you make it when then kids are in bed, because that's what consenting adults do? Well I think it has something to do with Mad Cows Disease (BSE), because in the 90's Bovril went fully *vegetarian* as exports to EU and world were banned, and the makers had to do something before they went bankrupt. Sales dipped (they would, less Mad Cows Disease, people became saner, they didn't want to drink thinned out Bisto, with loads of salt did they?). It also, oddly, fell in line with less football fan riots, and now that its 100% beefy again, Millwall fans have started to riot. That proves it, doesn't it?

As an aside, did you know Bovril started life as Johnston's Fluid Beef for the British army? Good thing they changed it to Bovril, Yorkie fans would never have remember a name that long!

And before you write emails, I'm not a Plumber and I don't fish at the Trentside Fisheries pond either, it's somebody else with a long surname.

Right then, I'll just go and wash my Thermos out, ready for the Exeter match then!

from Jan Przeniczny