Cod Almighty | Diary

The Charge of the Lightweight Brigade

18 December 2024

VFTF diary is back and as is becoming an annoyingly frequent occurrence, we have another home defeat to stew over. My concise summary is that Crewe Alexandra were an impressive team whose midfield controlled the game and they deserved their win.

After the dust had settled it was revealed that League One (for now) Burton Albion had approached the Crewe manager, Lee Bell, about their vacant manager's job. He turned down the Brewers and remains with the Railwaymen. If the Mariners can maintain a position of only being three points behind the Alex till the end of the season, then we will have done very well I reckon.

After watching another Mariners attack fizzle out my mind began to wander and having read all of the advertising hoardings and being a football club name nerd, I tried to remember the origin of the suffix Alexandra. As is the modern way, I gave up and googled it after about 30 seconds. For those unaware, Crewe Alexandra were named in honour Princess Alexandra Caroline Marie Charlotte Louise Julia of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg – imagine getting that printed on the back of your shirt.

After growing up in Copenhagen with Hans Christian Anderson reading her bedtime stories, she was sent off to England to marry Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales, who became King Edward VII in 1901. What's this got to do with the Grimsby I hear you cry? Well, nothing, but I found it more interesting and exciting than watching us patiently knocking it around at the back in the last few minutes of a home game we were losing 0-2 to a promotion rival. GERRIT FORWARD TOWN!

Oh, and if you need a Grimsby link to the above then I have a tenuous Tennyson one. Yeah, he was born in Somersby but his dad was Vicar of Grimsby so he must have been a Town fan in the few years between Grimsby Town being created and him dying in 1892. His famous last words were "Oh that press will have me now!" which I am pretty sure I heard Jordan Wright lament as he followed the new tactical orders of "fanny around with the ball at your feet till the strikers are so close you can smell their Lynx Africa." GERRIT FORWARD TOWN!

Anyway, when Princess Alexandra sailed over to England to get married and start her new life Tennyson wrote A Welcome to Alexandra in her honour, so there's your link. Happy now? No, me neither. If you were looking for proper interesting content on your lunch break then perhaps consider further reading on the fascinating etymology of English football clubs' names.

Next up it is Swindon Town away and all the associated baggage that this entails. There is a surprisingly large number of ghosts of GTFC past on the books of the Robins' backroom staff. This was reduced recently when Danny Rose (the disappointing ex-Man U conspiracy nut, centre-mid one - not the current one with lovely teeth) left his role as youth development phase lead coach. His departure follows that of the Head of Football, and it seems the Robins are this season's "League Two crisis club". Fan protests are planned for the weekend, their training ground is haunted, they sit third bottom in the league, are in terrible form and have Holloway in charge. Come on boys - don't mess this one up. On Saturday we need to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield if we are serious about this rather unexpected and slightly odd promotion push in which our home performances and results suggest a team looking down not up.

Safe travels to all of those spending their money and giving up their time to get to the County Ground so close to Christmas. It looks set to be another impressive away following. It is not a ground I have ever visited, but Swindon are a club with which we have more than just ex-managers in common as alluded to in yesterday’s enjoyable retrospective diary.

Like us, their football club and town have experienced much better days and have been the butt of the joke in popular culture for many years. We all know how annoying and patronising this is, so just remember that the Swindon lot are little slugs, little slugs with no personality who are just jealous of us because we're better than them at everything.