Cod Almighty | Diary

How do they feel for size?

26 July 2023

"Towntastic ping-pong passing past competitive Impish spares. Appropriately zippy under a rainbow" read ace match reporter Tony Butcher's succinct assessment of last night's 2-0 win over Lincoln City. Succinct because that's just the kind of guy he is, but also because there's a 128 character text limit on his Spectrum 48k mobile phone.

Daubney didn't get to Blundell Park to experience the black and white zippys up close. Just as well in one regard, as the weather also got some minutes in the legs by giving all four seasons a run out during the game. Instead 50p was carefully placed in the Radio Rentals iFollow box to watch from the couch.

With the obvious highlight being John Moore's description of a rain shower that sounded like a stampeding herd on the roof of the Findus and morphed into sleet, hail, and possibly fireballs spawned by Lucifer himself (he sits in the Main towards the Pontoon end. Nice chap, but frowns a lot), Paul Hurst's 2023 Mariners did enough on the pitch to leave most of us with a feeling of nagging positivity. Sort of like the ace pair of trainers that look and fit great in the shop but you worry will be cutting the foot off you ten minutes into their first game of three and in on the rec.

That's a hangover flashback from the old Town. Nice things happen to the new Town. Literally new Town in some cases last night, with all of the summer signings who featured looking the part. Jake Eastwood deserves a mention, not just for his shotstopping, which has always struck me as the easiest thing for a keeper to be good at. He dealt well with crosses and was quick and brave off his line on several occasions to thwart the Imps attack in a performance that made a strong case for starting the season as our number one.

Kamil Conteh gets a paragraph to himself, just like the swathes of BP turf he owned last night. First impressions of this fella have not moved on from "how on earth did we end up getting him?", an impression most recently formed by Town fans on several of Russell Slade's 2017 signings, but for entirely different reasons. Kamil prowled around enforcing the rules like an imposing nite club bouncer who you later see giving it Tom Cruise cocktails behind the bar before his late nite slot pulling rabbits out of a hat between slightly blue jokes in the variety show. Forgive me, the fact that I called it a nite club should tell you I haven't been to such an establishment in a while, so my idea of what goes on in one may be slightly dated. Maybe I should just say that Kamil looks a baller, innit.

But we're getting carried away, we're still self-consciously walking up and down in the shop in those bloody trainers. The real business doesn't start until next month. And on that note, the club have announced the ticket details for our trips to Mansfield and Notts. Our advice is to be very nice to your browser and internet connection beween now and 9am tomorrow. Good luck and UTM.