Cod Almighty | Diary

You can't always get what you want

27 December 2022

Miss Guest Diary writes: I can't pretend I wasn't disappointed not to secure a ticket for the game at Harrogate. Even quite cross when I learned that it was almost certainly due to a snafu with the online ticketing system rather than bad luck or my own incompetence. But I felt differently come 5 o'clock yesterday.

No longer cross, even a little grateful that the fates had allowed me to spend a convivial day playing silly games and eating leftovers with relatives rather than repeating the Hartlepool experience of witnessing Town concede a late winner to a team below us in the table. Even more grateful when I read former CA diarist Lloyd Griffith's account of people in the crowd (I won't call them fans) shouting "Grimbsy reject" at Maximum Wright and calling some of our players crap.

The sense of entitlement among a small proportion of Town fans is staggering; the lack of patience and the unwillingness to accept that players are trying their best and that the management team might know what they're doing is bewildering. I know a lot of people who don't 'get' sport and I spend a lot of time explaining what it means to me and why it is so fantastic being a football fan, but sometimes words simply fail me.

I can't say anything about the onfield action yesterday because the only Town match reports I read are Mr Butcher's, and he obviously wasn't at the game either. I can tell you about Paul Hurst's post-match interview in which, for the first time I can recall this season, he seemed quite down about conceding what he described as "three poor goals". To hear the manager say that his team "can't defend" and utter the phrase "If we defend like that we’re not going to win any games of football" was dispiriting. I still have faith that Hurst knows what he is doing, but I wonder whether he is beginning to lose faith in himself.

Well, we've only got a couple of days to wait before we see whether he, and the players, can redeem themselves with a win over Salford. Hopefully, Harry will score another goal to make up for the one I missed yesterday. Going to a match on a Thursday evening will be a first for me, and the fish and chips beforehand will be a welcome change from leftover turkey and Christmas pud.

UTM