Cod Almighty | Diary

Towards a sporting fourth flight

17 May 2024

As Rob McIlveen recalls in Our greatest champions, when Grimsby travelled to Lincoln in 1934, there was no battening down of hatches, no mass deployment of mounted police and hi-viz jackets, as though the city centre was in a state of civil war. Far from shutting all the pubs, they were given permission to extend their opening hours, the police contenting themselves with a suggestion that the permission should be granted only to those bars near Sincil Bank.

There were times, perhaps before any of us were born, when a local derby was something of a festival. The reflection is prompted by the news that Grimsby have been drawn away to Scunthorpe United in the Lincolnshire Senior Cup, highlighting the fact that the next League season will be yet another without a game against anyone closer than Doncaster.

The play-off semi-finals brought mixed results. We keep Donny, but may lose Crewe, who over the last couple of years have morphed from eternal bogeymen to our gimme. It goes against the grain to wish well of Crawley, but we'd not miss them.

It is of course right and proper that a football-based entertainment franchise based in a Buckinghamshire new town should be denied any measure of success, but their failure to achieve promotion does leave us with another blank in our fixture list. Or even two. Newbegin Diary is not being dourly ideological: I feel a genuine queasiness at sharing my Saturday afternoon with people who know no better than to support them. This is no derby: there is nothing performative about the contempt.

All of which leaves me wondering, in the absence of a local rival but the presence of a team from Milton Keynes, who would make the ideal members of next season's fourth division. What clubs could we enjoy playing before wishing them ungrudging good luck?

My own vote is split. Leyton Orient's fans have a likable, wryly realistic passion for their club, and now that Boston United have thrown off all the taints of the Steve Evans years, they are the friendliest of our local associates. They would offer a derby where the pubs could stay open.

But let us know your own preference.

Have a good weekend.