Cod Almighty | Diary

No money, mo problems

20 May 2020

Just because you want something doesn't mean you should or can have it. It's one of the things you learn as your grow up, your Deviant Diary keeps being told.

We want our football back, but can or should we?

Well, we aren't getting back to Blundell Park anytime soon, are we. And neither will some of the present players, as the end-of-season cull swings like a pendulum over the avenues and alleyways of the digital highways and byways. Cloths will be cut, as will several clods and clots too. We may want to keep, say, The Hess, but lack of money will talk. I suppose we just have to accept what will be, rather than what we would like to be, for after this we can't go back to business as usual.

But Harry Cardwell, boy, I dunno...

As Casual Diary observed yesterday, our Chairman of the Bored P-Diddy set out the numbers in words within sentences – and it's a whole new ball game out there in agent land. The playing budget will be "very, very different".

And what will be the viewing experience? Will we be there at all next season? Or perhaps how can we be there?

Oh, what's an atmosphere? We love a party with a bit of atmosphere so how can Town make up for any absence of us humans moaning and a-groaning? How can the players perform without the low rumbling grumble of disapproving disappointment at a sliced swish into the Lower Frozen Horsemeat Stand by a gangling journeyman stopper? It's what makes them tick, or perhaps simply ticked off. It's the authentic sound of lower league football.

Das Germans have experimented with cardboard cut-outs, the South Koreans filled their stands with cast-offs from our Barnet 2016 Festival of Fun. C'mon Town, get your senses and that 3-D printer under Dave Smith's desk working overtime. Season tickets for personalised mannequins in your own seat! And while you're at it use the state-of-the-art sound system to the max – create an app for us to download our top ten taunts.

"Oooooooooooo"
"You're rubbish (GPS tracking to insert name of nearest player)"
"Foul throw"
"Spatial awareness Jobling"
"Elevation"
"We {expletive deleted} on your fish"
"Sort it, Grovesie"

So for just £29.99 send a full-face photo, a voicemail of your favourite moans/chants and the ground will be full of sound and vision for the players. It's virtually reality. Especially if the wind blows the mannequins out of the ground with ten minutes left.

Or we could follow ice hockey and have an organist entertaining with a medley of Mariners melodies.

Elsewhere in the wonderful world of woe the fourth division fan base is reeling in horror at the revelation that Harry Redknapp is looking for a bargain basement retirement toy to play with, complete with cheerful geezer TV soapy spin-off on ITV3.

Let's hope that this isn't the Revelation to John, for on the breaking of the seventh seal there will be silence in heaven for about half an hour as 'Appy 'Arry pops up in Steels wobbling on about opportunity knocking, folks. He'll mean that most sincerely.

Chill out baby, there's nothing we can do but sit back and dream, dream-dream-dream, of a new season, sometime, somewhere, somehow. There will be a tomorrow, it just won't be the same as yesterday.