Cod Almighty | Postbag

The postbag is back!

13 January 2022

We've got a couple of pick me ups from two of our regular readers, some season's greetings and a good old Up the Mariners in this week's letter box.

Seasons Greetings

Greetings to all at Cod Almighty Towers,

What a year hey! But I just wanted to thank all of you wonderful ladies and gentlemen diarists for the entertainment (often better than was coming from the field of play), thoughtful insight, great writing, campaigning, lifting our spirits when needed and for making us all feel a band of sisters and brothers bound together in our love for the 'Town.

Despite the recent (temporary) loss of form, injuries and some piss-poor refereeing, for once I feel highly optimistic on the eve of 2022.

Happy New Year to you all

from The Ancient Mariner of Norfolk

Good things come to those who wait

Watching the Ipswich FA cup game the other week, on the TV pundit Lee Dixon was commenting on their poor form by saying they had brought in 19 new players over the summer and in his opinion it took at least a season to bed them all down, find out their strengths and weaknesses, characters, interaction etc. He said he wouldn't be surprised if it took longer than one season, form would be up and down until the squad gelled and it may be necessary to add and subtract players in the transfer windows depending on how they panned out. So from an expert a bit of a summing up as to our situation too? I believe we had 17-18 players come in over the summer. Just saying.

from Peter Hopgood

Jacko's rant

I'm going on a rant, brought on by social media and the fact that "Joe Soap", "a man and his dog" or "Uncle Tom Cobley" can voice an opinion nowadays. GTFC suffer big style, we really really do. Post match interview, posted on Facebook links. Comments section: "not good enough", "sack the man", "we want a striker", "clueless" etcetera etcetera etcetera.

I find it as depressing as anything at the moment. Positive new owners, positively saying positive things and taking about positively changing the local mindset of the club and fans. What chance? Eh? You can't put the genie back in the bottle, that's a given (on social media). But what purpose does the comments section really serve on a Facebook post? Other than to give a frustrated voice to a keyboard warrior after a defeat or poor performance. Take the validity of opinion to it's conclusion, and we sack the man. We appoint another man, his results don't improve.

Where does that leave us? Other than having took notice of someone on Facebook who thinks they know better? We buy a striker? Of course we want to, everyone does, all clubs at this level, 20 goals a season, lovely. But it isn't your money is it? We buy a striker, it says striker on his CV, his agent tells us he's a striker, he scored a goal once. You buy him, he doesn't do what it says on the can? Where does that get you? Apart from satisfying the bloke on Facebook who leaves angry and disappointing messages.

ALL fans are fans and have equal billing. All opinions are valid (within the reasoning that an opinion is an opinion, not a fact) and that's football at all clubs, I recently saw a review of a Doncaster fan and he was bitterly disappointed about them seeing at their recent history had them in the heights of the league somewhere above us, but he wasn't happy.

I'm a sceptic most of the time, not exactly a positive outlook, unfortunately some of us are like that, others are eternally sunny in their outlook. The big but here though, is that after the recent poor form of the last few seasons, one year along the way from Hollowgate and Fentygate, we are just that fifth Tier, one year away from meltdown. We are not in meltdown, we are competitive, just not winning. We have points in the bag, we can build on that. We have a squad with young local talent, and we have a decent academy of recent years (remember, I'm not usually an overall Mr Positive). Just have a look at ourselves at the moment? Who do we think we are?

We are GTFC, we sometimes punch above our own weight, we normally don't. We sometimes have some good seasons, we mostly recently don't. We have stable periods with success and a long term manager? Mostly recently we haven't. Some say it isn't enough to just have a club to support, we want success. I think I'd be happier to have a club to support, than no club at all.

Think on, some of you.

from Ian Jackson

UTM

I quite liked Dave Byron and John Lawton, lost touch after about 1977 though. Oh dear lost again, never mind. Onwards and, hopefully, upwards.

UTM 

from Elvis Hamster

Got something on your mind? Got the solution to our poor form? Got a transfer tip? Tell us.