The Diary

Cod Almighty | Diary

Swimming in the sound of Bow Wow Wow

8 December 2021

Town clobber gives Daubney the creative spark for today's diary. The shirt Jack Hodgson wore in the 1939 FA Cup semi-final appeared on Ebay yesterday afternoon. After several faithful recreations of the Larry David faint, the first thing we did was make a cup of tea, take a sip and spit it out. We eventually recovered enough to suggest that the club and/or trust need to somehow acquire this marvellous piece of GTFC history. This is obviously on the assumption that the new owners will care for such an item and not give it the old vanishing-Kevin-Drinkell-hat-trick-ball treatment or allow it to rot in their garage like a previous principal funder is alleged to have done with the Spurs 2005 match shirts.  

The auction, already at a spicey £1,550 this am, includes Jack's shinpads and a letter from the club when he left in 1948 to join plucky upstarts Donny Rovers. The shirt is obviously the main draw, with the seller adding "the shirt is a bit dirty as I never wanted to wash it". For the benefit of our younger readers, the shirt is only a little bit dirty as it was Jack who replaced George Moulson, himself deputising for flu-ridden George Tweedy, in goal after just 20 minutes. As the picture sequence here shows, Jack offered to go in goal, putting the keeper top on over his own and sensibly preserving the shirt for its future Ebay sale.

Anyway, as we all know, Wolves, already pumped up on a diet of monkey testicle juice, took advantage of a short-handed Town and the referee's controversial award of three goals against Town for breaking a little known by-law of the era that goalkeepers could only be called George. Yes, the monkey juicers. Do you know that out of the four semi-finalists that season Town were the only team not taking the soon to be outlawed substance? A decision no doubt fuelled by our boys sense of fair play and an attitude of "WTF, are they monkey's testicles? You're alright, pass me an extra portion of mushy peas and the Woodbines instead." In short, clean Town are the true winners of the 1939 FA Cup. 

Earlier in the day it was Jaz Goundry wearing a classic Lotto shirt that grabbed Daubney's attention. That's where the diary diverts into useful non-clothing based content. Sort of. Jaz, now there's a name that we need in the first team. With your Ellises, Caines, and Joshes falling by the wayside, Harry and Max have made it clear that having a name that fits comfortably into a 1939 cup semi line-up can help your chances of regular first time football. In Harry's case, of course, he made doubly sure by sharing the same name as a teammate of Hodgson, Tweedy and Moulson.

Sorry, where were we? Goundry. Yes, how are he and his loan pals getting on in their quest for first team conference ball?

Jaz: At Northern Premier League Bridlington Town and winning awards. Good man. Also has a teammate there called Jake Lister and if there isn't a chant of the "Jake Lister, he's the Wish Jack Lester", the game's gone.

Luke Spokes: Northern League North Spennymoor Town. Famous for once having knock-off Town kit and players and being the home of top 1980s ref George Courtney. We don't know much about how Luke is getting on, but he was sat behind a diarist at Bramall Lane watching the football with Ryan Sears. *insert unfunny and predictable bantz designated driver joke here*

Louis Adlard: Currently on loan at Clee Town to gain match experience and make the bookies look like tits.

Ollie Battersby: At Belper Town, also in the Northern Premier League. Not much news online about his performances but positives are Belper Town use Subbuteo type graphics on their social media and Ollie has a teammate named, wait for it, Danny South. If Hursty can sign him we'll just be a Danny West shy of a Danny compass full house.   

Danny Rose: Another Danny and one who is obviously at the other end of the career spectrum, he's been farmed out to Darlington. There's a nice Darlo fan on the Fishy who could probably give us an update but that's asking a lot of your diarist. *insert unfunny and predictable bantz tinfoil hat joke here*

If you are the type of sensible football who likes to go and get some perspective by watching other teams and you've seen any of the above in action, please let us know.