Cod Almighty | Diary

Tout vient à point à qui sait attendre

12 August 2024

Miss Guest Diary writes: Is it just me or does anyone else feel the football season has started a week too soon? What with the recent protests and riots making it feel that the country is going to hell in a handcart and the Olympics still in full flow, I simply don't have the bandwidth to stress about Town at the moment.

Not that I have been stressing about Town really. After the brief meltdown when Town lost their pre-season game at York, the ship was steadied with a couple of decent results against third tier opposition. Then we've had the more-or-less universally approved loan signings of Luca Barrington and Jordan Davies plus hints from Artell of more to come. The consensus seems to be that Town are in reasonable shape and, with a couple more loans and the return of injured players like Thompson and Tharme, might even be in good shape.

But still it seems to have been the most lowkey run in to a new season for many years. So traumatising was last season's relegation fight that we cannot bring ourselves to believe Town might do well. Virtually every Town fan I follow on Twitter or speak to in real life seems to have decided that they'd "settle for 16th" this season. I even found myself saying before kick off on Saturday that I'd "settle" for a 1-0 defeat. I didn't want Town to lose but, with recent thrashings still fresh in the mind, it was the most positivity I could muster.

And so it came to pass. I've stayed away from the socials because, for every rational Town fan out there, there will be (an inevitably anonymous) one who takes delight in calling the players trash and suggesting the manager should be sacked. I take comfort in the remembrance that last season's opening day saw losses for both Stockport and Wrexham and now-relegated Sutton beat Notts County 5-1. I guess what I'm saying is that I won't start to get stressed about losing for a few games yet.

Getting back to the Olympics, I'm not a huge follower but I have been spurred on to watch more events than usual by my hope that GB could finish above France in the medals table. I have nothing against the French per se, but I was riled up by them booing Tom Pidcock after he beat a French cyclist to the gold medal in the cross-country event. As a result I have even found myself in the previously unfamiliar situation of cheering on Australian and US athletes. Alas it was not to be: although we won more individual medals than France, they won more golds. With the demise of GB's recent dominance of track cycling we had to fall back on our more traditional areas of expertise such as rowing and equestrianism and it wasn't enough. But well done to all our GB athletes anyway.

Tomorrow sees Town host Bradford in the League Cup, a game which I suspect will have all the atmosphere of another pre-season friendly. Hopefully the idiots who like to sing about Andy Cooke's supposed fondness for teenage girls will stay away. Anyway, it's a good excuse to have an afternoon playing miniature golf in Cleethorpes, losing a few quid in the arcades and indulging in the excellent fish and chips at Ocean's.

UTM