Cod Almighty | Diary

Here's to the Jim Martins of this world

22 October 2024

Newbegin Diary used to work with a Tranmere fan, an affable man who could take a joke as well as tell one against himself. He was at Prenton Park when Tranmere's goalie scored direct with a clearance almost immediately after the match had started: he was taking his daughter to her first game and he was still organising the paraphernalia which goes with taking a young child on an outing when it happened. No matter. More than if he had actually seen the goalkeeper's goal, he enjoyed explaining how he missed something you might never see in a lifetime of watching football while his daughter saw it at the very start of her career.

He had a football mug for office use, but working in Liverpool he was careful not to cause offence. He bought one for York City because no one would object to it, and after a few washes all the writing and the badge faded from it anyway, so he was left with a bland white mug: even a Lancastrian keen to revive the Wars of the Roses would have struggled to pick a fight out of that.

Tranmere play in white, a neutral colour in an area divided between red and blue, almost a flag of surrender. For many years they played on Friday nights, a tacit admission that they weren't going to compete against the attractions of Everton or Liverpool. Their fans have their own passions, their own claims to fame but to most of us they are just another name on the fixture list. 

True, some of our supporters tried to make an issue out of how a minority of theirs gloated at our relegation in 2004 at Prenton Park. We'd be better focusing on the decision making of John Fenty and Nicky Law and the sheer lack of professional pride in a team who treated an era-ending defeat as just a bad day in the office. There will always be fans who overstep from playful jest into thoughtless spite: are we really convinced that if the situation and the roles had been reversed that day then every Town fan present would have shown dignity in our success?

This is no grudge match. If the genie who occupies so much sporting conversation but no space in real life were to offer us an emphatic win on Saturday in return for a defeat tonight, we'd be delighted with the deal. Whatever the result - as long as it isn't secured by some latter-day John Aldridge dive - we can sincerely wish Tranmere well for the rest of their campaign.