Cod Almighty | Diary

Some people are just born with tragedy in their blood

14 September 2015

Being in cult 1980s indie band Half Man Half Biscuit never catapulted Nigel Blackwell to global stardom. But he said my favourite thing that anyone has ever said about football. He said: "Whatever division this club happens to be in doesn't decide if I'm going to support them or not – that is the behaviour of a spoilt child." Let's hope for their sake that lots of his fellow Tranmere Rovers fans feel the same way this season.

He's spot on. Getting promoted is really hard. If Town go up through the play-offs at the fourth attempt, lovely. If we don't? Well, your original/regular Diary has mostly enjoyed 2015 because Town have been more enjoyable to watch than at any time since about 2002. We ought to get promoted, sure. But ought never cooked the tea. We ought never to have dropped out of the League.

Status report? The season is a fifth of the way through (I know) and we're 12 points off automatic. And for a minute back there Saturday looked like Macclesfield all over again. When I say a minute, of course, I mean 45 minutes. And when I say Macclesfield, I mean any number of palpably inferior opponents Town have faced during the past year or ten and somehow contrived not to administer the severe thumping that the difference in ability would merit.

As it turned out against Aldershot, Craig Disley, in his mid-thirties, is still good enough to do the work of two men – which is fortunate for Town, of course, because he had to. And even in second or third gear the Mariners' front two have far too much for most Conference defences.

But watching the Mariners at the moment is like seeing a dad arm-wrestle his eight-year-old son. If he really wanted to, he could crush the poor little mite in an instant. But he toys with him for a while, pretending to struggle just to make the contest a little more interesting. And if Dad loses his concentration – checks his phone, perhaps; worries whether the roast is overcooked; has a moment of existential grief about playing the lead role in a convoluted analogy about an obscure fifth-division football team – then the weaker of the protagonists might pounce, forcing the stronger arm down to record an unlikely but perfectly valid win.

Still, we said we'd accept fewer clean sheets if it meant more goals for. We did. It's actually in the small print you skipped over when you signed the direct debit instruction to pay for your season ticket.

Town's four wins this season have come in two sets of two back-to-back. Unless I've got this wrong, the two sets have both featured unchanged starting line-ups. For Saturday's win over Aldershot the players who began were the same as those who kicked off the midweek victory at Boreham Wood. And when Town thumped Bromley and Barrow last month within the space of five days, the first 11 names on the two teamsheets were also identical. What's that? The arguments about not faffing with the team have been done to death? Sorry. Just saying.

Operation Promotion? Clue's in the title. Positivity is great but it's a double-edged sword. Life is hard because I'm not even as famous as Nigel Blackwell. It's a good job that, like a true Grimbarian, I never set my sights any higher than that.