Cod Almighty | Diary

Oldham back

13 March 2026

After yesterday's beautiful and moving diary some of you might be crying out for the return of emotion-free fatuous nonsense, and you'd be in luck because BOTB is back from his minibreak to provide. 

The Oldhams, eh? They're in a bit of form! Across the globe, influencers and pundits are saying it's not too late for them to make a late bid for the play offs! (It is though.) In their last four games they gained a very creditable point at the Bromleys, and won their other three, but they were against Tranmere, Gillingham and Crawley, the Three Horseman of the Easypoints Apocalypse, so I'm not too sure what weight we should place on that. Nonetheless there are no easy games in this division (apart from Tranmere, Gillingham and Crawley) so of course our sparkly stripey magicians will have to be on top form to get three points and maintain our play-off place. In this division, as everyone knows, luck, pitches, refs and brownian motion can influence results just as much as talent and form, so nothing should be taken for granted, except victories against Tranmere, Gillingham, and Crawley.

Tomorrow's game is followed on Tuesday night by fish and chips at the Ocean Fish Bar! Hurray! Sorry, I mean a home game to Fleetwood Town, who are the middlest of the middle leaguers, the kings of mid-table, the emperors of ordinariness and the dons of dreariness. A team with nothing to play for is traditionally considered easier than a team with everything to play for, but it often turns out not to be the case as nervousness evaporates and players express themselves more freely. So who knows. This is followed by Barrow, who may very well have appointed a new manager and sacked him by the time we play them. Mid March and all to play for at the right end of the table. They may say those were the days, but for us, you know, these are the days. 

Good luck to the travelling hordes at Oldham tomorrow! I'm going to end with a terrible, terrible joke so if you want to avoid it I'll do a false finish here so you can go and do something else.

UTM

Two horses are stood in a field. One gets out his phone and shows the other some pictures. "This is me as part of the King's Guard" he says. "And this is me as part of a Royal Procession. And this is me in the film The Magnificent Seven."

The other horse gets tired of this and gets his phone out as well. He then shows his boastful friend a picture of a zebra. "What on earth is this?" asks his friend. "It's me when I played for Grimsby" he replies.