Cod Almighty | Diary

You just want to be on the side that's winning

11 September 2017

Miss Guest Diary writes: Oh for some stewarding controversy to write about to take your minds off the football. Alas, I saw no controversial incidents at the match on Saturday in Mansfield. The stewards did do a quick body and bag search, but you get that at Blundell Park these days, and they were very respectful and friendly. It's true there were umpteen police inside the stadium lined up in front of the Town fans – I think someone counted 45 – but that was it. As I understand it, football clubs have to foot the bill for policing inside the ground, so Mansfield obviously have cash to burn and good luck to them – and to the boys in blue getting paid overtime to stand around doing nothing.

With that out of the way, I have no choice but to get back to the football. I have one word: tedious.

When Russ returned last season I was not in favour as I had vague memories of not liking his style of play when he was last our manager. But the human mind is a funny thing. It tends to downplay pain when it is over – you know, that old saying that if women remembered how painful childbirth is, there'd be a lot more only children. Russ didn't actually seem so bad in the few games he managed last season, so I thought it might be OK. With hindsight, I realise that he was just marking time, letting a squad he hadn't assembled play out their contracts.

The dismantling of the squad during the summer – and, most shocking of all and still a go-to topic on Twitter, the replacement of Shaun Pearson by Nathan Clarke – had me worrying. But again my fears were allayed by the enthusiastic performance and surprising win at Chesterfield. The exuberant crowd, the goals and the euphoria of beating a 'bigger' team blinded me to reality – which quickly set in watching Town play Coventry.

It all came flooding back, the reasons I hated Russ's management the first time round. The hoiking and hoofing and lack of cohesion. The sheer tedium of the match and the lack of attacking threat had me reading a book during the second half – something I found myself doing again on Saturday.

At least the first time round with Russ we managed to win quite a few games; this time I fear we will not. It's going to be a long, long season. A major consolation for Cod Almighty readers is that, the worse the game, the better Tony Butcher's match report. I actually chuckled quite a few times when reading this week's opus: check it out. If the season continues in the same vein, Mr Butcher will be a candidate for the Nobel Prize for Literature by the end of it. Well, if Bob Dylan can get that accolade for such gems as "the pump don't work 'cos the vandals took the handles", anything is possible.

As a long-standing occupant of Cod Almighty Towers, I get to see the feedback we receive before it is published and wanted to pick up on something in a recent letter. The writer queried how female fans feel about bad language at games. Let me take you back to Swindon in September 1994, quite early in my days of watching Town, when I didn't really join in with singing and mostly sat quietly watching. It's the 89th minute and Town are winning 2-1 when Jan Aage Fjortoft goes down in the box to win a penalty – cue quiet middle-aged woman (me) standing up and bellowing: "Fjortoft – you’re a fucking cheat!"

So, I would say to the letter writer that everyone understands that emotions run high at sporting events and language will be used in a football ground that would not be welcome in other venues. But what I will never understand, and never find acceptable, is abuse aimed at our own players – either in the ground or on social media. We're all Town, aren't we?