Cod Almighty | Diary

Tell me where you want to go

21 June 2023

Daubney Diary here swooping in on midweek like a forthnightly midweek diary swooping thingy to tell you the Wolds Panther is a Mariner again. But you already knew that if you are a student of CA nicknames. We like our in-jokes to be out and funny with an easy to use set of instructions. 

As with any transfer season, geezers need excitement and the words "three-year deal", "undisclosed fee" to go with memories of Charles vernaming his way across Essex fields knocks "18 year old Big Club FC academy loan" into a cocked hat. However, as the opening prayer of the Jimmy Gilligan Survivors Group goes, there's no such thing as a sure thing in the transfer game.

Well there is one, and the dastardly @Onthisgtfcday gave us the annual reminder yesterday: letting a 37-goal stud with his own song go and replacing him with Scott Vernon is completely bonkers. Rewatching the incredible This is England TV series this week with the title scenes of ace period music accompanying images of ace period civil unrest and rioting, it occurred that had Podge been released in 1984, we'd probably have rioted down Grimsby Road and torn the place apart. Insert your mean own joke about doing it in 2016 and sadly causing thousands of pounds worth of improvements. Coincidentally, the Podge Amond Release Group meets just after the Gilligan group every second Thursday, new members always welcome.

So having agreed that a decent riot is healthy and needed now and again, what's that got to do with Town? Well, if we don't know whether the Vernam transfer will work, we can deduce what it and that of Toby Mullarkey signals. There is a plan with a healthy dose of patience and sense. Wouldn't be much of a plan otherwise I suppose but it's easy now to take such things for granted. "Success in football, if it is going to come, comes quickly or not at all. The whole long term plan was Michael's idea." Apart from the fact that having a long term plan is good, the fact that the Fridge Magnet said it was a bad idea makes it even better. Isn't it funny now to look back at a world where you could be blamed for having a plan.

Not only did Paul Hurst have the funds for Mullarkey, Vernam and Danny Rose, he had the job security to wait for these signings when at least two of them fell through in January. Bursting the bank then would have ticked the "intent" and "ambition" boxes for us fans but the likelihood is we'd only have 9th place to show for it. And that brings us squarely to Chairman Wow's recent Guardian column, cryptically titled "Taking the emotion out of decisions is the way forward at a football club". Jason Stockwood, a successful tech millionaire but he wouldn't last two minutes in the clickbait headline game I tells ya.

So there you go, we won't know if the signings so far, or the two Harveys Cartwright and Rodgerses we're rumoured to be in for, will work out, but the process and board will give us every chance of signing more Podges. We might even keep him this time.