Cod Almighty | Article
by Various
31 December 2024
Are you still curious how we curated our back catalogue into bite-sized morsels fit for the matchday programme? Oh, you're still not, well you can read them anyway. What better way to distract yourself this murky/bright/freezing/boiling morning/ afternoon/evening on the lead up to an away game
"...and I topped it off with a cucumber"
What next? Accrington Stanley, I presume. Never assume, never presume. If we assume we would expect what has gone before to come again – and Town's limited history with the new Stannymen is littered with losses and the occasional lucky win, the general Grimsby vibe best summed up by our match report in a 2017 defeat described as anti-tainment and entitled An Evening of Swing (has been cancelled).
So, what's next is Accrington Stanley, the third highest ground against the lowest in the football league: 157.3m v 0.6m. Yes, we're playing giants.
Miles Moss's 2006 Rough Guide, anticipating the first meeting since January 1960 (when we used to beat them all the time), heads straight to the elephant in the room, shakes it vigorously by the hand and offers it a canapé. Or possibly a pickled onion:
"Right, Grimsby fans: you all know what it's like when other websites or newspaper articles by professional journalists write about the Mariners, and can't resist forays into awful fish puns and lame copy which relies heavily on trawling metaphors. You grimace; you groan; you affect a heavily-sarcastic belly laugh.”
Oh yes, yes we do Miles:
"Now, we don't want to anger the Lancy-Lancy-Lancy-Lancy-Lancashire locals into lumping Cod Almighty in with all the other 'lazy metropolitan media'; we don't want to further child star Carl Rice's agony on becoming a veritable Arthur 'Two Sheds' Jackson ("I've done TV and I'm a writer but the advert is all people want to talk about"); also we'd like any visiting Stanley supporters (hello!) to have a pleasant visit. Therefore, you will not be hearing the phrases "Who are DEY?", "MILKCCHHKK?" or "EXAKKKCHCHKKLEEE!" during this article. Err, except just then, of course.
Funny how advertising can be misleading: for a start, Ian Rush is lactose-intolerant."
And way back when Miles was as prescient as our old psychic Mystic Meg in seeing the future of this fixture:
"Three times they have folded (most recently and famously in 1962) and three times they have risen again. You just can't keep them down. Bear that in mind if we find ourselves with a half-time lead."
Hey, that was 18 years ago, things are different now, though they haven't been in between for our trips to the team stuck between Blackburn and Burnley. Those away days generally find our match reporters in wistful moods. For Pat Bell it's a journey to a recent, lost past:
"The train rumbled through old mill country, bald moorland pierced by brick chimney towers, monuments to an industry which is gone but not forgotten."
OK Pat you're in Accrington, but where's the ground?
"The man smiling apologetically behind the counter at the newsagent; the young man walking up from the Accrington Superbowl; the Asian gentleman who was a stranger here himself; the woman outside the pub: none of them knew the way from the station to Accrington's Crown Ground. Luckily, the woman knew a man who did”
OK Pat, you're in the ground, but what can you see?
"…on a little summit on the far side, a group of four small children stood to watch, now and again running after one of the balls that were punted over the low stand at frequent intervals. They would see most of the goalmouth action, but none of the goals.”
A jumpers for goalposts Proustian rush of nostalgia.
But spare a thought for Miles, after our first visit in 2006 resulted in a 4-1 hammering, he went back the next season:
"Football supporters have all sorts of traditions, superstitions. The lucky socks, the regular routines... don't change anything, or the team might lose and it'll be all my fault! There are unlucky routines as well, I have discovered.
Last season I was there. Pat Bell had come round to the house at about one o'clock, and we set off in my car up the M66 towards the beautiful Lancashire hills on a sunny day. I nearly got lost near Haslingden and then had to stop at a service station to use the cash machine.
This time round, Pat Bell came round to the house at about one o'clock, and we set off in my car up the M66 towards the beautiful Lancashire hills on a sunny day. I nearly got lost near Haslingden and then had to stop at a service station to use the cash machine. Exactly the same service station.
"It's tradition," Pat retorted that he hoped the result would not also be repeated. A-heh heh heh...
The Stanley fans in the pub (yes, the same pub we went in last season) seemed confident of a carbon copy anyway, with "4-1 to the Accrington!" taunts. Pah! Have they not heard about our potential this season? You'll be lucky! Ha! Inside the ground, a few hundred Town fans enjoyed the sunshine and warm breeze. The balmy army.
And today's referee…is Jon Moss. The same ref we had at Stanley in April of course...o-oh.”
And the result? Accrington Stanley 4 Grimsby Town 1. History repeats itself as farce.
But sometimes, just sometimes the farce is with us. In April 2010 we had an improbable and almost inexplicable dead cat bounce back after being 2-0 down at half time. We still got relegated. But in 2017 we had a touch of glamour between our sticks, for Dean 'O' Henderson was our keeper du jour one fine December day and from the first time we ever saw his saves we knew we were onto to something good.
Do you remember the first time? We've changed so much since then. Our match reporter set the scene:
"Ooh, hang on, no Jamie Mack today, but having been some days in preparation a splendid time is guaranteed for all with Henderson resplendescent in orange, beating his chest and roaring at the Pontoon."
And so followed a masterclass as Dean O caught a cross, caught a corner, and another and another. Danger beckoned but reckoned without our loan star:
"Flipping like a pancake, popping like a cork, Henderson thrust out a hand and beat away a Boco banana blaster at the near post…A chinkling chip, a yellow turn, a block, a bundle and Henderson's psychic aura diverted the ball.
Gasp! The plot thickens with a twist. The monochrome sea parted and McCarten was free on their right. Henderson inflated himself into a Schmeichelesque star and firmly booted the cross-shot away. A small moment, but a big save. And in that moment we could see the difference between stars and stripes. Henderson is more than simply a keeper of goals. Personality goes a long way."
One player, one moment can change a game, can change a season. Things change.
These are the full versions of the Cod Almighty programme articles for the 2024/25 season. Edited version was published on 3 December 2024