Cod Almighty | Diary
Too slow!
12 March 2026
I remember Jack Lester scoring a first half hat-trick against Oldham Athletic in a League Cup first round second leg match back in August 1997. It was one of the first matches I was allowed to go to with just my friends (I was only previously allowed to go with my grandad).
We went on to make the fourth round that season, beating Sheffield Wednesday along the way. We also reached the fourth round of the FA Cup that year, and in both competitions it took top-flight teams to knock us out. What lovely parallels to draw with this season! Perhaps 2025-26 will end in similar glory at Wembley, where six minutes of injury time won’t seem totally wacky. You never know — we might even meet (and defeat) Andy Woodman there again, if Bromley have a Walsall-style implosion and we hold our position in the play-offs, defeating money-bags Fulham Salford in the semi-finals.
Most football fans can recall insignificant and even meaningless life events (and the approximate date on which they occurred) according to what happened in the football. This baffles non-football friends and partners whose frustrations are born from our inability to remember things that are actually useful.
Not to put it too heavily, but football — and more specifically Grimsby Town — defines our lives. It’s a yardstick by which we measure so much. It offers perspective and relativity, even in the most obscure corners. For example, you wouldn’t think Oldham would stir any visceral emotions within the average Town fan. But to me, winning at Boundary Park on Saturday would matter a little more than winning anywhere else right now.
To understand why, your West Yorkshire Diary needs to fill in some blanks. In February 2004 I’d got my hands on a free ticket to watch us at Oldham in what began to feel increasingly like a relegation six-pointer given Town’s alarming slide down the league table. My grandad, who used to take me to reserve games on Tuesday nights as a treat after school, and who got me into supporting the Mariners when everyone around me was Manchester United mad, was on his death bed. My parents took a call early that Sunday morning to go immediately to hospital. I wanted to go with them, but they insisted I go to Oldham because it was what he would’ve wanted.
About two hours later I took a call on a busy train full of buoyant Town fans to confirm he’d passed. I was hemmed in against the window by a group of half-friends that had already cracked into their cheap cans of lager. It would’ve been too weird to tell them my news, so I just sat on it and forced myself to carry on as if nothing had happened.
The peril of nearly missing our connecting train at York momentarily made me forget about my sadness. Then I remembered again. It was a surreal journey, one filled with hope of a Town win — no matter how misguided that was — and one filled with loss. I’d never felt so detached from such a large group of happy people.
Those of you who are good at structuring your memories according to football won’t need reminding that we lost 6-0 that day. Scott Vernon scored a first half hat-trick, and it took him more than a whole season playing for us over a decade later to wipe out that deficit. Oldham had Danny Boshell playing for them that day, too. We were 5-0 down at half time. Mike Edwards had been sent off. How bad was this going to get?
We played the entire second half with ten men and somehow only conceded once more as rumours circulated that Paul Groves had been sacked before the final whistle had even been blown.
I remember standing at full time, staring into the distance, letting fans around me file away. Their gallows humour had come and gone. As they fumed, I felt a shudder run through my body. I’d convinced myself that we were going to win that day. Grandad was going to sort it for us (he didn’t, clearly). So, there wasn’t some higher power overseeing us; there was no one controlling outcomes; there was no design or grand plan. I’d hoped for a brighter day and a better result, but what I got was something very different — and it didn’t actually hurt. In fact, I'd been given a memory strengthened and exaggerated by the absolute absurdity of that result. And as I’ve re-told the story over the years, it’s become embellished and decorated with details that feed into that absurdity even more, to the point where I find joy and pleasure telling it.
And I wouldn’t have got that if we’d lost 2-1.
Still to this day I remember the involuntary chuckle I let out while stood behind the goal at Boundary Park as everything just hit me at once. I knew in that moment I’d be back. I’d say it’s written in the stars that we’ll win this Saturday, but I’ve made that mistake before. I know from that day in February 2004 we can just as easily lose it 6-0. And if we do, that would, perversely, make my evolving story even greater.
But, if we win — however we do it, whether it’s deserved or edged — it will write the ending to a story that has so far given me a beginning and a 22-years-and-counting middle. An ending and some closure would be nice.
We’ve all lost loved ones. We learn to live apart, but this club keeps us together. UTM!