Cod Almighty | Diary

History Takes Time

4 August 2023

It's all kicking off in Cleethorpes. In just 24 hours from now, and a bit longer, the Mighty Stripeys will face AFC Wimbledonians in what pundits are already calling the First Match of the Season. Sort of feels wrong, doesn't it? The first match usually comes along like a fresh breeze when everybody has a bit of a suntan and is a bit bored of being too hot. This time it comes after the population of North East Lincolnshire has been living in damp Tupperware for the last six weeks, and wondering why god hates them so much. Given the forecast for tomorrow, there's every chance that Grimsby Town Football Club may be the first team in history to not play a single game on a nice day for a whole year.

What do you think of our chances? I don't know. I mean, I'm quietly optimistic, but that is the great thing about the first game of the season. You're allowed to be quietly optimistic, or noisily optimistic, or filled with an unknowable dread. All shots are on the board. The pre-season friendlies suggested we're going to be okay, but I still don't believe they mean anything much. Our younger reader may be bemused when we sit down with our pipes in front of the fire and recollect that, in seasons long gone by, nobody gave a shit about pre-season friendlies and most of them had an attendance of about eight.

What we do know is that we as fans can contribute. We can make noise, we can support, we can intimidate referees until they give penalties to us for nothing. Actually, forget that last one. Although most things are out of our control, the atmosphere at BP is ours to forge. To put it in basic footballese, we can do our bit. We have a say. 

All of us, players, fans and staff, set out on a new journey tomorrow. There will be ups. There will be downs. There will be injuries, last minute winners, last minute sickeners, terrible refs, slightly less terrible refs, glorious awaydays in the sun and horrible awaydays in the drizzle. We will have new heroes, new villains, new controversies and new headlines. A football season is like an epic movie with twists, turns, whoop-de-dos and whoop-de-don'ts. It's the proverbial rollercoaster ride. I'm sure you get the idea.

Tomorrow the park should be packed, the opposition didn't look too much when we played them prior to the break, and we have lots of identical new footballers to confuse us. This is the bright, shiny new dawn we've all been waiting for. In the words of Jane's Addiction, they may say those were the days, but for us, these are the days.

So get yourself a raincoat with a fish motif, get down to the park and get behind the boys. Please, though, if watching from the Pontoon, on no account raise the roof. It's just been put on.

UTFM!

PS Am I the only person to have noticed that Gertrude Stein was actually a man?