Cod Almighty | Diary

Oh sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me

14 August 2026

Christy Pym is in on merit and he played well last Saturday. So said Artell who spent a huge chunk of this week's pre-match interview defending our man in yellow. The message: if you're calling him out, you're not supporting him. You're not a supporter. So, get behind him. We can hope that that's the case. We can hope that the Pontoon articulators will keep quiet and let him concentrate. We can hope that he has a game in which he is called into action rarely and what he has to do he does with little or no fuss.

Is this a modern-day thing? This assumption of abuse and the pre-emptive attack on criticisers as non-supporters? I remember well the long years of McKeown and his need every other season to re-establish his relationship with the crowd after a couple of blunders. And re-establish it he did. All keepers go through it; they all get mangled. It's how they come through it, how they deal with the pressure afterwards that makes them good or bad keepers. Pym hasn't had the chance to show us he can deal with it. Let's give him that chance.

Artell also paid tribute again to Alex Hughes. There will be a memorial for him before kick-off tomorrow. His death has left a cloud over this summer, and we will never know how much it has affected our recruitment. Artell did go on to say that we may be in for a new midfielder and he promised that the players and the staff will be giving it their all this season, but this felt, understandably so, like a muted interview given the usual summer's Christmas Eve excitement around the build-up to a new campaign.

Charles Vernam was also pushed in front of a microphone, telling us he's fired up and hopes for an even better season than last. And more than hope: he has his own plan from our much-expanded backroom staff of nutritionists and sports scientists. He has not missed a minute of pre-season training and feels like the days of his body breaking down are behind him. Music to your A46 Diary's ears. CV, the footballer formerly made of glass.

Our current glass contingent continues to try to piece itself back together, arguing over superglue and carefully palming for shards beneath the furniture. Glass outhouse Tharme, glass custodian Cartwright and glass gazelle Gardner all remain sidelined. If it wasn't for all this glass our squad would be looking pretty good, just a midfielder and maybe a winger to round it off. But the glass is there, cracking like a cheap slow-mo in a made-for-TV movie.

Forget the glass and focus instead on how fab our starting 11 is. At this stage we can use that positive pre-season to power through the next three weeks quite comfortably. More bodies will arrive, glaziers will be employed, and we'll suddenly have a squad capable of fulfilling the predictions of all these podcasters.

It's a strange feeling to be so many pundits' favourites for promotion. We like it better being the surprise package, I think. Of course, our name itself means that whatever success we might achieve will always come as a surprise to many, so there's still plenty of under-dog satisfaction to be had.

I like it. I like the recognition of several years' clear progress. I like the respect commanded by our head coach. I like his proven track record. I like that so many assume he's going to do it again. He's been given the time and the backing, so why wouldn't he? I did read in a couple of those predictions that the club had paid for a brand-new pitch. This may be a caveat to the optimism as I haven't seen anything from the club that suggests this. We've had our annual renovation and whatever it is they do with the various strata and it looks wonderful, but that isn't a new pitch. Time will tell on that one.

Exeter tomorrow. For the third year in a row, we start with a relegated team. The Grecians were comfortably mid-table at the close of the transfer window but managed just 12 points in February, March, April and May. In the same period, we got 35. Manager, Matt Taylor, who oversaw relegation as interim, claims half his squad are not League Two players. Whether that's too good for the fourth flight or not good enough, we're not sure. Either way, they have good players, a point to prove and a tide to turn.

I still fancy us though. Last week's game showed me enough to suggest that against our peers we will be a force to be reckoned with. BP will be full, the sun will be shining and summer's Christmas will begin.