Cod Almighty | Diary

Ridicule is nothing to be scared of

20 April 2026

Miss Guest Diary writes: Apparently, Saturday's 4-1 victory at Gillingham was the first time Town have achieved this scoreline in the league since 2008, the longest any club has gone without doing so. I was informed of this by CA's chief statto, though he was unable to give me a convincing reason as to why anyone would bother to keep a check of this fact. His response to my query was "It's important stuff". Mmm.

What was important was getting the win – not just for all the play-off race hoo-ha – but because I was meeting up later with a Gills season ticket holder who was a big boss in the organisation where I worked before we both retired. Sometimes bragging rights in your social circle can trump the bigger picture.

Now everyone, stattos and non-stattos alike, seems to be trying to work out the permutations for Town's remaining three games – what our own results might be and which of our rivals might drop points to enable Town to claim that seventh play-off spot. When it comes to worrying about what our rivals are doing and how many points could see us into the play-offs, let's all take a leaf out of our kung fu warrior's book and just focus on trying to win every game.

Getting back to Saturday, I have to say it's the first time I have ever enjoyed being surrounded by a crowd of boisterous drunken fans. I am, of course, referring to the Belgian boys from Aalst, about 40 of whom were with us behind the goal. They had certainly all consumed a few beers but were unfailingly good-natured and polite. It's definitely the first time anyone standing in front of me has turned round to enquire whether he was blocking my view. Even the stewards, who started off trying to corral the Belgians, realised that it really wasn't necessary. Their singing of all the usual songs, but with slightly odd pronunciations, only added to the atmosphere and general jollity. A lovely day made better by a lovely result.

And Mr B is claiming a hand in Green's goal for shouting "Elevation" before the Wolds Panther took the corner.

I'm still down in Kent until tomorrow – well why not when our journey back north will take us right past Cambridge – which has given me time to catch up with Town news. I can report that Harvey Rodgers has made it into the Sky League Two team of the season – and rightly so. He has been transformed by David Artell from a clod-hopping centre-half into a dashing right-back – the best in the league according to Artell – which has meant more than a few fans have had to eat their words recently. 

A further testament to Harvey's progress would be to feature in Town's end of season player awards, but it will probably be the Wolds Panther who will sweep the board. And who can argue with that - he's scored some great goals this season, including on Saturday. He spoke about it on the club's YouTube channel - nothing earth-shattering but he does it with a lovely smile. He's definitely the sort of neighbour who would feed your cat and put the bins out for you.

I have also been enjoying the posts on X about the Gills ridiculous manager, Gareth Ainsworth, with a particular shout out to Susie Garbutt for creating this image. It's obviously what AI was invented for.

Now might be the time to talk of must-win games, so here's hoping for three points at the Abbey Stadium tomorrow night. See you there.

UTM