Cod Almighty | Diary

Hope is the thing with feathers

8 April 2024

Miss Guest Diary writes: In last week's diary I suggested that a win for Town against Newport and losses for our relegation rivals would be a big ask but, lo, it came to pass. Where does that leave us?

I have read about a hormone that makes women forget the pain of childbirth so they are not deterred from going through it all again. Maybe there is something similar which works on football fans to make us keep coming back. In my time of watching Town there have been five relegation seasons but my memories of most of them are pretty hazy. Two do stand out, at Tranmere in 2004 and at Burton in 2010, maybe because there was still a glimmer of hope we might survive, but the others are simply a blur. Whereas I have many memories of the promotions achieved in the same period.

Each season Town have gone down it has undoubtedly hurt at the time, but come the summer we've been eagerly awaiting the fixture list to plan trips for the following season. Over lunch on Saturday Mr B and I spent at least half an hour convincing ourselves that another season back in the Bananarama would be okay – even enjoyable – with more wins than losses and trips to old favourites like York and Southend and maybe even a local derby against Scunny. Now it looks like staying up is possible, even likely, and we are once again prisoners of hope.

Saturday's game was overshadowed to an extent by the news that David Artell's father has died, which explains why Shaun Pearson was on media duties last week. Of course, some were speculating, even hoping, that his non-appearance meant Artell had left – they should feel thoroughly ashamed of themselves, but I doubt they will. All at Cod Almighty Towers send our best wishes to the manager and his family.

Another loss to the Town family last week was Roly Godfrey, John Moore's faithful sidekick in all those wonderful season highlights videos from the '90s. My favourite Roly-ism has to be his exclamation of "I'm not taking this coat off now!" when Town scored early in a game to interrupt him rambling about the weather.

Some good news from last week was the announcement that Cameron Gardner has been nominated as the EFL fourth division apprentice of the season. I saw him play, and score, in the pre-season game at Boston and was impressed. Hopefully, he might break through into the first team next season. The winner will be announced at the EFL awards dinner next Sunday – good luck Cameron. It's worth a look at the full list of nominations, some, nay most, of which had Mr B scoffing in derision.

Anyway, it's on to Harrogate tomorrow. A win there could release us from the prison of hope onto the sunlight uplands of expectation.

UTM!