Cod Almighty | Diary

Glossal frag

21 November 2024

It’s Thor’s Day, day of thunder. The irony here is that today’s diary will be anything but thunderous. A sort of overcast mizzle is heading your way. Work is keeping me busy, so I’ve had just a brief moment to concoct this nonsense. I’m all for swiftness, yet I’ve no time for Microsoft Word’s hard-on for conciseness. It probably thinks it’s helping, but it’s not. That program has got no whimsy.

Right, let’s do this the old-fashioned way and go around the grounds. The official site reminds us that we can bring a buddy to Saturday’s game against Colchester for a fiver. Which is nice. It’s a 12.30 kick-off, remember. Your West Yorkshire Diary must have missed the moment when Grimsby v Colchester matches became so notoriously exciting that Sky Sports felt compelled to televise one of them.

A televised game isn’t what it used to be, though, is it? Back in the day, it was Nick Powell and John Helm, with pre-match build-ups, interviews, discussion, intelligent analysis, and a fervent atmosphere. Now it’s all subscriptions, VPNs, and some podcaster armed with xG stats curated from a bot commentating on the match from their bedroom.

Before you can get your teeth into any further tasty website morsels, you’ll have to navigate your way past ads for whisky, gambling, and cars. Football, eh? Phwoar! Lads, lads, lads!

Then, there’s a reminder of a game none of us were invited to, or even told was happening. It’s the 2024 Luke Spokes moment, although I do get the feeling the club chose not to announce the Senior Lincolnshire Cup fixture against Scunny, rather than simply forgetting about it.

If you dare to engage with the Telewag site — something I haven’t done in literally years — you’ll instantly see why it’s not worth bothering with. Its headline story remains the one about Artell branding the penalty decision at Newport ‘horrific’. To be fair, if you pay people peanuts and decentralise local reporting to another town many miles away, you will get a very pungent whiff of cba.

I’d like to tell you what the club is pushing on Musk’s mouthpiece, but for my own sanity and mental health I decided to migrate fully to Bluesky two weeks ago, where there’s already a strong and growing community of Town fans. The club itself hasn’t posted there yet, although two profiles purporting to be the official GTFC do exist.

The club can, of course, do what it wants, and there may be some moral, societal or financial justification for staying on X. I mean, there will be plenty of Town fans who are quite happy to be spoon-fed right-wing lies and propaganda, and who might even enjoy the outrageous conspiracy theories, misogyny, xenophobia and racism that’s published and shared unabated by some of the worst people in society who search to eke out the very worst in others in an effort to maintain relevancy and power indefinitely. Each to their own, and all that.

Right, that’s just about it from me. Just a quick glance at some of the key stats ahead of Saturday’s game against the Colcestrains before I love you and leave you.

The Us are winless in eight, haven’t won on the road all season, and sit fourth bottom. The Mariners have won six of their last nine games in the league, lost eight of their last ten home games in all competitions, and sit in the play-offs with a minus six goal difference. As the cool kids say these days, make it make sense.

What on earth will happen this weekend? Who knows! Get yourself down to Blundell Park to find out. UTM!