Cod Almighty | Diary

They're having a VARmare

11 March 2026

Gregor Robertson isn't the first name on people's lips when we talk about Town legends. He played left-back in the 15/16 season and so was a vital part of the defence that laid the foundation for the Bogle double and Arnold's totes emosh last-minute goal in the play-off final of that year. Who knows, maybe he was signed with funds from Operation Promotion. He retired at the end of that season at the not-so-grand-old-age of 32. A year or two later he turned out for a memorable appearance in Disley's testimonial.

So far, so what? Roberston turned to his pen and has become a respected football journalist, regularly writing columns that feature in The Times, and he is also a lead pundit on the paper's football podcast. He's pretty good, often talks sense and his former clubs, not least us after his very special year in Meggies, get regular mentions.

Right, still, so what? Your A46 Diary was interested to read his article on VAR in which has his own Road to Damascus moment and admits to changing his views on the Pound Shop SkyNet overlord. John Connor would never have needed a resistance to lead if PGMOL was in charge of the extermination of the human race. Imagine the lines being drawn on the skulls being crushed beneath the tracks of a giant robotic death machine. All eye sockets are within parameters. Quota met. Wait, hang on, one socket is a millimetre outside of the crushing zone. Quota not met. Quota not met! What do you mean it's too late? Etc.

It is too late. I have a little bit of 'told you so' energy here. Way back in the late noughties, the factory tea bar was buzzing with quotations from Match of the Day about how we must have the technology, how the game is too big, too important, too global to rely on the decisions of one man in the middle. And it works for those other global sports: rugby, cricket, tennis. To me, the argument was simple: those sports have stoppages built into them, those sports take turns. Football was always different because it didn't stop. Who knows, maybe that's why it's the most popular spectator sport on the planet. Maybe, just maybe, the fans liked the pace and the certainty of decisions taken in the moment. Maybe it's not just Gregor Robertson who regrets calling for SkyNet's interventions.

It's still too late, of course, no matter how many columnists decide that it's a silly system for a silly version of the game. It's become very clear that the people who run football don't like football, but they do like lawyers. This forensic version of the product is exactly what they want.

But what does this have to with us? The VAR nonsense is three divisions and a whole world away from lowly Grimsby Town. A whole world and just next door. The technology drives a wedge between us, the football family ever further apart as the hierarchies become the be all and end all. There is no family. Football without VAR isn't part of the football family. We're a backstairs brat, a bastard to be hidden, an uncomfortably familiar face to be ashamed of. Ours is a game that isn't the same as the TV product consumed by billions. Not the same. Different. A different product. We play a game that is increasingly unrecognisable to those who follow the elite (ha ha!) leagues of Europe.

Difference is shame.

As I write this the BBC Radio Five commentators are telling me how important it is that Liverpool's non-equaliser against Galatasaray must be checked carefully and how this delay is adding jeopardy to the game. That's the excitement of that version of football now: play till a contentious decision can be discussed. Play for two hours, for three, the screen is all, and live football is all but dead. A game – an example of the product – could take ten hours, and it wouldn't matter for the YouTube ten minutes.

And the poor relations? Fuck 'em.