Cod Almighty | Diary

The Boys are Back in Town

24 February 2023

"Come back next Friday," I said last week after my drearily pessimistic take on Grimsby Town and their potential relegation problems. "We'll know better by then."

Well, four points in a typical Town 'Countdown' styley, (three from the top, one from the bottom) and even the BOTB doom machine is beginning to believe that things are set reasonably fair for the remainder of the ever-flowering spring.

Tomorrow we take on Del Shannon's runaway leaders Leyton Orient, who are a whopping 13 points clear of their nearest rivals with the daffodils out already. The Orienteers, as they are known, surely don't need that ludicrous kind of a lead to be sure of the title and would be better off sending out a reserve side to save their superstars for the vital run in. I will email Del and tell him.

Hopefully, whatever the result, it will be a game of football and not whatever the Colchester and Harrogate games were. Some sort of a brawl outside a pub, perhaps, but with matching shirts? As someone on the Fishtacular forum said, if the Colchester match was the first game of football they'd ever seen they would never have watched another one.

After the Orienteers comes the biggy of the season, the fifth(!) round FA cup tie at Southampton. With Wrexham knocked out, TV bosses have finally found a place for us in their schedules and those unable to make the tie, which includes anyone under the age of 16 with it being a midweek mess, will be able to watch on ITV4.

Four ITVs?? Kids today don't now they are born, etc. We had one ITV and it had Bernie Clifton and his ostrich on 24 hours a day. Actually 16 hours a day, because at midnight a sign would come on saying "go to bed, you've got school in the morning" and the screen would go black, only for Bernie and his ostrich to reappear at eight am sitting on a sofa next to Roland Rat and Jimmy Saville. Kids, if anyone ever tries to tell you they were the good old days, don't believe a word.

Don't Believe a Word is, of course, a Thin Lizzy song. My reader will know that the lyrical canon of Thin Lizzy holds a very special place in my heart. Classics like "tonight there's gonna be a jailbreak, somewhere in this town!" (I'd guess the jail) and "I'm not trying to make you scared, but there's a killer on the loose!!" have been delighting listeners for many decades. Why am I mentioning this? Well, because I've run out of things to say about football, and because the greatest bass guitar intro in history was released on This Very Day (actually yesterday but I wasn't doing the diary yesterday) in 1979 when Waiting For an Alibi hit the streets. Go and listen to it now. Go on. It'll get you in the mood for the footy tomorrow, I promise.

Five days, two free hits at teams well above us in the league. Since my predictions are on a par with Mystic Meg's, I'm saying nothing but anyone who has seen Town this season knows they save the best for the best. So fingers crossed, legs crossed, haddocks out, and breathe. Remember, if we beat the Southamptons, we are in the actual quarter finals of the FA Cup. Yes, I know that's a big 'if'. But dare to dream, my friends! The last eight!

I was going to end with a Thin Lizzy song title but I couldn't think of a fitting one. If you can, stick it here in your imagination. It'll just round the diary off nicely.

UTFM.