Cod Almighty | Diary
Emerging from gorse
21 April 2023
BOTB. It’s me, your diary, I’ve come home-a. Thank you to the Deviant one for filling in for me last week, despite his scurrilous claims that facts are irrelevant to me and I make up this nonsense as I go along. I can assure my reader that every diary is thoroughly researched and fact-checked by my own select team of hand-picked statisticians and experts. Thanks, Doris!
Firstly, I want to talk about THAT Pissing Substitution. You know, the Parslow Point one. It occurs when we are winning a match and Hurst takes off a striker and brings on either a defender or a midfielder, usually resulting in us losing because we become trapped in our own half. Plucky little Grimsby Town manager Paul Hurst became known for this particular gambit after it repeatedly cost us points against inferior opposition in the non-League era. I for one hoped it had been consigned to the proverbial dustbin of history, but it reappeared on Tuesday night like a bad penny. Now, Hurst can say it worked because Barrow didn’t equalise, although they had a free kick on the edge of the box which they could easily have scored from. But twice in that last virtually forward-free passage of play we broke and players had literally nowhere to go and ended up putting the car in reverse and going back towards our own penalty area.
Now, I'm no Gary Neville, but I have this theory that a place you don't want the ball to be that often is your own penalty area. It’s like the Pissing About at the Back which some people are trying to make a thing, as though slow moving defenders who can't control a ball going back and forth along their own sixteen yard box is the basis for a devastating attack. Man Utd conceded the first goal last night by Pissing About at the Back and my statistician Doris has calculated that 108% per cent of the goals in this year’s premiership were conceded as a result of defenders Pissing About at the Back. When I’m watching Town, guess what the thing I want the opposition to do most is? As soon as they start Pissing About at the Back my heart leaps in gladness towards the starry realms of heaven. We’ve got a chance, here, I think. We aren’t very good at attacking but it’s okay, we don’t have to work hard to create chances, they’ll do it for us, by Pissing About at the Back.
I also love it when they take strikers off and bring defenders on. Can there be a bigger boost for your team’s confidence? We don’t have to worry too much about them, now. They’ve taken their gloves off and will allow us to lay as many punches as we like without punching back. Brucie Bonus.
I’d like to point out that we won on Tuesday night against a good Barrow side and I’m still moaning. But really, would you expect anything less from me?
We’re playing Tranmere tomorrow, so time to slip in the Half Man Half Biscuit references again. Which reminds me, when a person from Birkenhead says the word "Birkenhead" how would you write down that vowel sound? Beiiurkinedd? We just don't have enough vowels in the language. It’s like trying to invent a new colour. If you see any Tranny fans before the game tomorrow, ask them to say Birkenhead and then write down how you think it should be spelled and send it to me. Then if the game is rubbish you won't have had a wasted journey. It won't be Westward Ho, Massive Letdown. Too obscure? Sorry. Incidentally, just because you send them to me doesn’t mean I’ll read them. I’m a busy man.
Look, the season is nearly over. Three of our last four games are against teams with nothing to play for. Most of The Fishy seems to be taken up with arguing with a faceless crackpot. We are safely tucked away in mid-table like a moth in a cocoon, ready to burst forth with our lovely wings and fly up the table next year. You could write your own diary in your head. If you are short of ideas I find that if you use the words ‘Pissing About at the Back’ a lot the word count soon gets up close to where you want it.
Just in case you didn’t catch that useful phrase, it’s ‘Pissing About at the Back.’ Thank me later.