Cod Almighty | Diary
Water-way to have a good time!
9 April 2024
Well, we’re nearly there, folks. Another season is just five games short of being completed and our survival edges ever closer to being mathematically guaranteed. I’m not the manager, nor am I a player, so I can say what I’m about to say with complete freedom and no risk of repercussions: one more point should do it.
Sutton and Forest Green will drop points between now and the end of April. Ages ago, albeit when Sutton looked gone, your West Yorkshire Diary said 44 points would be enough to stay up. I did briefly consider changing my mind, but then Town went and beat Newport on Saturday while all our relegation rivals lost, and that did it for me.
And so today we head to a North Yorkshire town where water, not hope, springs eternal. No one really knows why Harrogate is called Harrogate. When those pesky Vikings started coming over here from the late eighth century, with their innovative farming methods and pioneering management structures that went on to underpin many elements of governance as we know it today, they also called streets ‘gates’ while wearing silly horned hats.
What’s not written down — and they wrote a lot down back then — is the explanation of the ‘Harro’ bit. Those farmers among you will know that the harrow is a tool used to till the surface of soil to help grow crops. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that this tool was introduced to England, and English, by the Vikings, and that the area of the modern-day spa town once upon a time featured a street leading to many harrowed fields.
Equally, it could’ve also derived from the Old Norse word horgr, which means ‘a heap of stones’. Maybe the stones they’re referring to are Brimham Rocks, just up the so-called street. Bizarre, oddly formed, and imbued with a sense of mystery, the rocks seem to have more in common with Grimsby Town’s squad this season than they do with Harrogate.
The town of Harrogate only blossomed once water sprung up in the sixteenth century. Sulphur stinks like rotten eggs, and Grimsby stinks of fish, so who will win out tonight in the Battle of the Smells? Will Grimm defeat a heap of stones (or a farming implement)? Who knows. Tune in from 7.45pm to find out!
What’s slightly embarrassing is the Mariners’ head-to-head record with the spa town’s football team. We have just one solitary point to show from five league games against Weaver’s watermen, and that came in an ironically dry 0-0 draw in February 2023, just a week before we sank the Saints in the FA Cup fifth round. Ah, those were the days!
Are we going to get the Harrogate that beats Gillingham 5-1 or the Harrogate that loses 9-2 at Mansfield? Perhaps it’ll be football, not water, that’s free-flowing tonight. Unlikely, but I wanted to do the gag. Admittedly, it was a weak one. This one’s slightly better: hope Harrogate bottle it tonight!
UTM!