Cod Almighty | Diary

Hail the rise of the idiots

26 September 2024

Is it fun following the Mariners? I sometimes ask myself this question when I seek to separate habituality from reality and consider whether there is enough joy in the endeavour to justify the material cost.

This isn’t some wobble over my allegiance; more a growing realisation that, with a career and a family now firmly planted away from my hometown, football’s role in my life has become very different from when I used to spend most of my waking day thinking about it, writing about it, or playing it.

Now, though, your West Yorkshire Diary thinks less about football, and football thinks less about me. The gap has been widening in both directions for some time, to the point where habit, loyalty and identity seem like the only reasons I continue to make efforts to stay in touch with it.

It’s the top league’s fault. It’s what’s pushed into our faces, day and night, and I just can’t associate with it. I don’t idolise the top players and I can’t tolerate the hyperbole that comes with such fixtures as Leicester vs Ipswich. The sport is suffering from a chronic imbalance of finance and power, and all the individual facets of the game that used to make it so diverse and fascinating have, over the years, been stripped bare to leave behind sanitised stadiums and billionaire owners from the US and Middle East who use their wealth to seek adulation and admiration.

For all the technical brilliance of the players that now adorn our top league, Match of the Day no longer holds my attention on a Saturday night. Last Sunday’s match between Manchester City and Arsenal was described as "one for the ages" in closing commentary, as if no one had ever seen two sides draw a high-stakes game 2-2 before. Everything is over-analysed, bombastic and nauseating, as those who run the game continue to believe — like all rich, entitled people do — that quality is everything, and that they represent the views of the public.

Somewhere along the line, they got quality mixed up with entertainment. Last week my local non-League side, who play in the fourth tier of the non-League pyramid, came back from 3-0 down to win 4-3, with the winner coming in the seventh and final minute of added time. This was uncleansed football; allowed to be what it naturally is. A ramshackle ground, an uneven pitch, a smattering of fans, a bit of rain at the end, seven goals, a red card, a penalty, and no shortage of talking points. That night, MOTD broadcast Liverpool’s 3-0 win over Bournemouth — a result so boringly predictable you could’ve bet on it… but since Liverpool were such heavy favourites, it wasn’t even worth it.

At least with Grimsby we’re at a level safe from the VAR and the verbose, and where the balance of power is a little more sensible. We still retain a certain whimsy and idiosyncrasy; there remains a charm in things like the Main Stand, our closeness to the North Sea, and the fact we actually play our football in Cleethorpes. The football can be turgid and attritional, the players frustrating, the mood sombre or even silent.

But, just occasionally, everything aligns and it can be scintillating.

The bit where the players kick a ball around? That’s not even the half of it. Football is everything that encompasses it. It’s not so much a thing, but a feeling. So, no, it often isn’t fun following the Mariners. But, while we retain our individuality and refuse to let any of it be eroded by outside influence, in our corner of the world, it always remains absolutely fascinating.

With each day I grow happier that we don’t take part in the clown house of the top divisions. You have to sell your soul to get there now. It’s not what it once was, and it probably isn’t what you might think. We are the heartland of football now, right here. This is where we belong, in this plastic-free fourth division zone where everything off the pitch means just as much as what happens on it.

Carlisle away. That’s proper football. Will it be fun? Yes — but in a way that the prawn sandwich brigade will never be able to fathom. UTM!