Cod Almighty | Diary

Slow moving hell

3 April 2018

How this season crawls to its climax. Over the weekend, Town managed two rare feats against Stevenage and Wycombe: a clean sheet and a goal from open play. There was no lack of application on show, and no lack of appreciation for the players' efforts in what was probably our best pair of performances in a couple of months. But our feats came in separate matches, so we are just a point better off. In the meantime, some results went our way, some did not, and one match didn't happen at all. The cliche of the crucial Easter programme did not live up to its billing.

We remain in suspense. If someone were to manufacture a drug that could put football out of mind for the long, slow hours between matches, they'd find a ready market in north-east Lincolnshire. A tight promotion race is like a lovesick teenager, alternating hopeful anticipation with tremulous fear. This feels like waiting in a hospital corridor for the results of some tests. Better - much better of course - because no one will die. But then somehow worse precisely because, at the back of our minds, we know it is 'only a game'.

You want advice, reassurance, words of wisdom? The best Middle-Aged Diary can do is suggest you stop reading; you are only scratching at a wound.

If it helps, I'll stop writing.