Cod Almighty | Article

by Various

28 March 2025

To many a football fan Town v Colchester is a quarrel in a faraway county between people of whom they know nothing

Hail Gus Caesar, Hail Camulodunum Unitum!

Are you not entertained? Is this not why you are here?

We've met now and again through history, though more frequently since our first escape from non-league back in 2016. Both clubs have been warily circling each other around and above that dreaded dotted line since, but remember - the past is another country.

Now then, no Colchester supporter could complain or quarrel when they think of themselves having visions of Ray Crawford slaying the Mighty Revie Leeds team ("Crawford's got it, Crawford's there!"), contemplating the long shadow of Roy McDonough (whose career was once described as a caveman's rampage) and that 7-1 slapping of Norwich. When we think of the Collymen of olde Englande we think of Layer Road's chicken shacks, the gleaming expanses of the Jobseekers Stadium and that bane of the new ground: the car park.

Those of us who have sailed south have seen things you people would not believe: Ian Knight playing with a broken leg, Harry Clifton's luscious lob, Charles Vernam's straight slalom run into history and those twin terrorisers of Town – John Akinde (the slightly richer man's Frank Nouble) and Harry Pell (the poor man's, err, Harry Pell).

But football is about the little things, the personal memories that become folklore. Our match reporter still cherishes his chance encounter with Alan Buckley, the only time their eyes ever met, as they both arrived outside Layer Road at exactly the same moment:

"The coach stopped, the door opened, out sprung Sir Alan to be met by a steward and be told the game was off. To witness even a mini-Buckley rant is an honour, a privilege, a thing of beauty especially if you aren’t the target and can pour more fuel on his ire. "Yeah, I rang them up this afternoon and they said it was definitely on!" And he doth ranted up another level.

At this point their manager Mick Mills walked past, eyes revealing his inner turmoil as he saw the approaching menace, trying to blend in with the wall. No chance. Sir Alan had spotted him, he too could not escape the Wrath of Buckley."

And 25 years later we started to share players, but who?

It's the Frenchman, the Frenchman, Jean, he played for us both. Ah, but which one? Jean-Louis Akpa-Akpro trialled for them, played for us and then there's the curious case of Schrodinger's striker, a man both in, and not in, two places at the same time.

Way back in the summer of 2004, when Russell Slade was scouring the earth for the Big Number Nine of his dreams, our original Diarist noted:

"Grimsby Telegraph has done a bit of homework on 23-year-old Triallist Amadou Konte, who arrives from Italian Serie C1 side Paterno Calcio via Porto but is looking for a fresh start after an injury-blighted campaign last year. At six foot four he is likely to be under consideration as either the central striker in Russell Slade's threatened front three or, as budget cutbacks at Blundell Park mean a shortage of stepladders, as official club lightbulb changer.

Entirely by coincidence, third-tier Colchester are giving a trial to a 23-year-old French striker who also appeared for Porto and Paterno Calcio and is also six foot four. His name is Amadou Conte, though, so he is clearly a completely different player.”

Just one month later Conte/Konte was back on trial again with yet another French striker, Gregory Thil, in tow, but three days after that…

"Russell Slade's search for a new striker is over! The man he has brought in to complete his new-look forward line is described as a bustling young six-footer with a good turn of pace who has goals to his name at Division One level. Twenty-year-old Darren Mansaram, who was previously on the books at…Grimsby Town”

Russ's existential crisis was thus averted when he remembered Sartre's bon mot that existence precedes essence.

No, no, of course we're talking Thomas Pinault, briefly noir et blanc after formerly being a long-time les blues et blanc. There were many who were doubting Thomas, but not us here at Cod Almighty, we fell for his Gallic charms, especially after once spotting him sat outside the Monaco fish bar in his little Peugeot reading the Grimsby Telegraph article about Le Beau Thomas.

All those moments may be lost in the mists of time, like tears in the rain, but when we play 'em there always seem to be a murky mist in the air which, fortunately, sometimes obscures the football.

Take just one example, a mizzly evening in those pre-Covid times. The sun had set and our match report set the scene:

"On Cleethorpes Lower East Side the early evening traffic is audible. As is the distant cry of the fishmoaners on a mysteriously misty night. Colchester turned up in fancy dress: Harry Pell came as a pencil, the rest as a football pitch. Their mint cracknel kit blended seamlessly with the green, green grass of home, such that little Lapslie was an invisible man, indistinguishable from a blade of grass.
Whoa, they'd turned up in camouflage, but things are never quite the way they seem. My don’t they loom in the gloom."

After a first half forgotten before it even happened the ships in the Humber started honking their horns in that maudlin, mournful manner.

"Neither team made any changes at half time. Apparently. Or in reality not apparently as the fog rolled over the Main Stand, crept over the pitch and into the faces of the Frozen Horsemeaters. We'll just have to take it on trust that the same 11 mint cracknels and 11 bar codes came out.

Eh? What? Did you hear something? What's that moving there? Where? There on the stairs, right there. A little mouse with clogs on, going clip-clipperty clop down the wing. A slimey-limey cross hit the top of the bar and it's back to square one with Mr McKeown who sends the ball into the clouds of doubt. Where is it?

Thicker, thicker and thicker still, we see no ships, we see no thrills.

I hear something. Shush. There can you hear it too?

On the hour vision returned. We can see the ball, we can see past the half way line. And there's Mr McKeown too. Oh, oh dear, the scoreboard. There's something different about the numbers. Oh no Dave, they've scored! So that's what that sound was."

You see, games are sometimes best heard, not seen. Today? We'll see.

These are the full versions of the Cod Almighty programme articles for the 2024/25 season. An edited version was published in The Mariner on 23 November 2024