Cod Almighty | Diary

Get a Life

4 October 2024

This time last year, 3rd October 2023, we beat Barrow at home. It was only our third win of the season and was Hurst’s last victory as Town manager. He was sacked five games later after the 1-0 defeat away at tomorrow’s opponents, Doncaster. That was 16 games into the season. We had 11 points. Even if we lose tomorrow we will have 15 points from ten games. Last year, we didn’t get to 15 points until December, our 21st game of the season and Artell’s first home game. So, despite being here for less than a calendar year DA has steered us to this (not very grand) total two seasons in a row, except this time, we’ve done it in less than half the games. And it’s been done with a squad stripped down to its bare bones, with round pegs in square holes, with Hurstian stalwarts bombing forward. It's been more than okay, it’s been thrilling.

And? I hear you ask your A46 Diary, why is this relevant? Well, last Saturday, at about half past three, as I was getting ready to head to the pictures and a screening of the absolutely bonkers and absolutely fabulous The Substance, I couldn’t help but notice the GTFC Twitter feed and another surfeit of doom-mongering tweets and calls for DA’s head on a black and white platter. Insistencies that he couldn’t organise a defence, couldn't find a way to score goals, couldn’t find a gun in an armoury, couldn’t find a banana at a grocer’s, couldn’t find a cure to a curse at a sabbat...

I'm tired. Why does every season have to be a choking forest of swinging cocks from week-to-week, day-to-day, hour-to-hour, minute-to-minute? He's had less than a year. He's dealt with every issue, every injury, every setback. He's learned lessons, adapted, had a vision, has been determined to keep seeing it through when the time is right. And performances and results are improved. And he seems like a decent guy. And yet, the noise is deafening.

Get a hobby! Paint a picture, drive a go-kart, swing a club, read a book, watch a film, brew exotic beers, build things out of matchsticks, build a replica of Ross Castle out of cocktail sticks and peanut butter, wash cars, mow lawns, haunt the tiling section of B&Q, jump out of planes, learn to fly planes, take up knitting, stitching, sewing, embroidery, jam making...

Why does anyone want to spend their Saturday afternoon shouting at social media? What is it that’s got so many so angry, so resigned, so resentful? Every week there’s a sense of a something lost, of genuine grief, a betrayal. But where has it come from? What is this betrayal? How have we been offended?

Tomorrow, we do not welcome Doncaster. Too often, they have been the portent of another period of suffering. Heavy home defeats are the norm and managers lose their jobs against them (I recall that they were Bignot’s last home game – a 4-0 reverse, I think – although his sacking was one of those strange Fentian moments after a decent result away at Blackpool). Clifton will return and we all know what that means. We haven’t beaten them here in over 30 years. And someone will be on Twitter looking for blood...

I remember last February after losing to them again, that 1-5 against a team whose form was as bad as our own, being convinced that we were gone. I told anyone who would listen we were gone. In the days after the game, I even said it on social media (said, not shouted, don’t @ me!). We were gone. I'd seen too many relegations not to recognise the signs. We were gone.

But someone proved me wrong. Someone changed, adapted, made us stronger, guided us away from the foot of the table. No betrayal, no failure, just an acceptance of what needed to be done, even more, an acceptance that what he was doing wasn’t working and so he changed it. And if he says we can be AC Milan, then maybe Doncaster had better watch out.