Cod Almighty | Diary

Scary weirdos, scary weirdos. Men with big long plaited ginger beardos.

26 August 2022

Good morning to you. BOTB here.

Do you think expectations of Town's performances are a little unrealistic? The hopefully ironic "Come on Town, these are shit!" cry that came from the Pontoon on Tuesday night notwithstanding, having groovy new chairpeople and being back in the league seems to have some people believing we are the new kings of football who must never be beaten.

On Tuesday night I saw a nervous team take a while to get into their stride, give away two goals and then spend the rest of the game mounting a courageous, thrilling fightback against a team three divisions and a hundred million pounds worth of players to the good. I borrowed a Telewag the next day, hoping to hear positive things about my football club, but according to TLDR Sam Ellis's match report, we were shit and beaten easily. The player ratings ranged between 4 and 7. Because having a premiership team on the ropes for half an hour but being unable to score, without our star forward and with Efete at CB and Andy Smith injured is apparently a poor excuse for a performance. Come on, Sam. I'm as dreary and depressing in my outlook as a drizzly November night on the Nunny and even I enjoyed myself. It was the most irritated I've been reading the Telewag since Geoff Ford had a column.

Actually, no. I'm always irritated when I read the Telewag, especially when 'news stories' about new housing estates are described in the words of the press releases from the builders themselves. "There are exciting plans for 269 thrilling new properties on this coveted site offering spectacular accommodation with all mod cons."

What you meant to say, Telewag, is: "Thanks to the cosy relationship between some crooks and some other crooks, we've somehow wrangled permission to stick 300 ugly fucking boxes on what used to be a nature reserve. We had 10,000 objections but ignored all of them because we don't give a shit. We've planted one fucking tree which will be dead within the week, the quality of building is horrendous, and some of the gardens will have plastic fucking grass. Anyone foolish enough to buy one of these abominations will be wishing they were dead within a week. Welcome to Grimsby's newest twatfarm."

Can I do your next housebuilding story, please, Telewag, you bunch of sycophantic lickspittles? Oh sorry, people don't build houses any more, do they? They build 'homes'. Did you not notice that little piece of marketing bullshit creeping in, Telewag? Well, you're only journalists. Can't expect you to think for yourselves or anything.

Tomorrow we play Walsall. When I think of Walsall, which admittedly isn't very often, I see nothing but a grey blob in my imagination. It is probably a town near Birmingham, or is a part of Birmingham, or something. Like everyone (I suspect) my head has a shorthand map of Britain which I refer to when anyone mentions a place name. That bit, mountains and scenery; that bit, sheep and rain; that bit, posh people and sunshine; that bit, traffic and cockneys; that bit, grey blob. Try saying the word "Walsall" to yourself in a Brummie accent and you can almost feel any sense of glamour and excitement trying to leave your body. I'm sure there are parks and nice bits and lovely people in Walsall, but the imaginary grey blob in my head shrouds them all in fog.

Actually one of my best mates from Uni came from Walsall. Did Alan Buckley come from there as well? An opportunity for you, dear reader, to do your own research here. Let me know what you come up with.

Most of our players are injured and all our management staff seem to be taking it in turns to talk about JMD and how he needs to buck up a bit. I don't know why, he seems to be doing okay to me. The season is young and I'm still not sure which way things are going, but I'm cautiously optimistic. Come on Town. I still love you even if the local press doesn't. Get us three points and put a smile on my grizzly old chops.

I nearly forgot. Why do they name streets after what they've built over? New estate roads are called things like 'Sunny Meadows Lane' and 'Dappleglade Close.' Are they taking the piss? 

The middle bit of this diary went a bit Geoff Ford, didn't it? I have turned into the thing I feared-o. Football, eh?