Cod Almighty | Diary
Memories, all alone in the floodlights
13 September 2024
Despite the date - Friday the 13th! - DA reports that there are no new injuries and those still out are making excellent progress. Pike and Tharme have both played in a game this week and Tharme in particular is looking almost ready to be back in the first team.
DA also commented on comments about Jordan Wright's performance in the otherwise excellent performance away at Chesterfield last week. He said there were more mistakes by Town's players in the opposition box than our keeper made, defending his player to the hilt. Quite right too. DA's honesty shines through again as he refuses to single out players for blame but insists that all players need to improve.
Your A46 Diary is all for improvement and if we play anything like last week with any kind of consistency, I'll be dangerously close to a very alien feeling: satisfaction.
Barrow have started the season well and will give a stern test to our excellent start at home. I'm enjoying this good home form. I have missed the days of reasonable hope and expectation at BP and I want to have that feeling again, but I'm too cautious to predict or expect a positive result. For now, it's still very much fingers crossed.
It's been a nostalgic week in GTFC land: Cod Almighty has launched its campaign to bring back the corners, creating a glut of old photos of BP with the corners and the old floodlights towering over them; Gordon Wilson was interviewed about his 60 years following the club; TVFTF's list of 21st Century players has made it to the most fondly remembered player of the last couple of decades, Alan Pouton; and @OnThisGTFCDay has reminded us of Clive Mendonca's hat-trick against Ipswich on his return from injury – a player who challenges Pouton as most fondly missed for any fan over 40.
Next week we will be celebrating 125 years at Blundell Park and GTFCHeritage have announced that they're making a documentary about the history of the ground and have invited fans to get in touch to share their memories. Your A46 Dairy's dad insists that I saw the Barret stand because of attending games in the Main Stand as a little 'un, but I can't remember. My earliest memory is sitting high up in the Findus and playing a team in yellow, the men around me talking about a chap called Elton John. I assume that means I also saw John Barnes play, but, again, the memories are not clear. My earliest clear memories are of Keith Alexander and Gary Birtles, and how the two of them made the game look so different, so brilliant, so skilful, so measured, so random, so fun.
It's hard to have favourite memories because there have been so many amazing moments and games. Mendonca's hat-trick against Ipswich, Birtles' against Wrexham, Pouton and Boulding both getting their hat-tricks against Wimbledon. Cup nights, play-off nights, the promotion-winning afternoon against Exeter. But perhaps the best are the memories stretched across several games: the Bonetti time, the loan periods of Neil Woods and Ross Hannah, John Oster when he was still a baby, the growing-by-the-minute potential of Matty Pollock. Or being a teenager at the back of the Pontoon, moving with the seething, sweating, stamping, singing mass. Those were the only times I wasn't cold at Blundell Park, the times when anything seemed possible and a future where the idea of failure was ridiculous.
Currently, my nostalgia is less than week old. Last week's game at Chesterfield, the best defeat we've had for a long, long time, has left me desperate for more. Let's hope tomorrow will continue these beautiful new memories we're getting in the 125-years-old Blundell Park.