Cod Almighty | Diary

Give us a wink and make me think of you

7 July 2024

I know, I know, time flies by when you're the driver of a train. Is it really 18 years since Glen Downey left the building? Where are his footprints in history? Right here.

Your Diary of Deviance has been channelling his inner Barry Davies when watching world events, if not the World Staring Championships 2024, through the medium of the media. It's interesting, very interesting, just look at his face. Ex-Chairman Wow's on a rock'n'roll and getting trolled for his not-so-secret manifesto to improve life, the universe and everything. There’s a new world in motion, for it’s all over now, baby blues. This ain't no Pyewipe dream, he sees something good in everything he sees. Do we even need to hope that Chipper Stockwood has a word with Lovely Lisa? The Football Regulator's surely a shoo-in now.

How can we express ourself on this issue? We're here, we're waiting for the call to arms to go on the People's Parliament Culture, Sport and Media sub-committee.
You can't be wrong when something's good:
• football matches to be played only on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Saturday;
• FA Cup replays to be reinstated and the final to be the last match of the domestic season;
• test matches to start on a Thursday with Sunday as a rest day, ban The Hundred, and The Ashes to be put in Group A of the Crown Jewels and made free to air;
• rugby league legally only a winter sport;
• rugby union given compulsory amateur status and only shown at 5:40 on BBC2 on a Sunday (except for the six nations, the Daily Telegraph readers must have some reason to pay their licence fee);
• Sweet Caroline and Mexican Waves criminalised with a mandatory two-year prison sentence;

Wait, it's not 1978 anymore you say?

I wish that I could turn back the clock, bring the wheels of time to a stop, back to the days when life was so much better. Like Johnny, I hate jazz. And rugby, obviously. It's not a party political point, there's no Jason Crowing here, it's just an observable fact: there's a chance for change that'll help fix the holes.

Oi, politics has no place in football you say. Has Toby still got a place in Town I say?

In the latest episode of Behind the Candelabra we peek behind the velvet curtain to see mundane things Mariners do and see no Mullarkey even as they muck about on the Meridian Line. No, that's not a reference to his brand new hairline. Watch with a soupcon of Vangelis in your heads as a bunch of Our Boys are seen being disoriented with a bag of compost down by the beach. In older, less gentle times we’d be making a cynical and very cheap gag, but remember it's a whole new world now. Everything's still rubbish, but we admit it and don't shout at each other now. For a few days.

And all that for a bag of sweets; at least it made tiny Tyrrell happy. That training, how very old school. It is 1978 after all!

That was then, this is now. It's the Grimsby Borough Donkey Derby kickabout tomorrow and those Euros are still going on, as are Gareth's Wonky Donkeys. Will the world get the finale it craves: France v England. Will football finally eat itself?
Hey, didn't I tell you to put your money on Ivan Toby. He hit the bullseye.

Always listen to Toby, though maybe not our Toby anymore.