Cod Almighty | Diary

More sinned against than sinning

7 September 2026

Your View from the Weekend Diary had a lovely time on Saturday. Although lovely maybe isn't the word. There were tragic consequences of hubristic acts, suffering for innocent and guilty alike, a fool whose wise words gradually filtered through the brain of an older fool and a bastard who got what was coming to him. Still, a very solid and very enjoyable performance of King Lear at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield.

Warning: possible excessive Shakespeare content. Turn away if early modern English is as terrifying as Cotterill in a rage.

Before making the drive down the M18, we were in the USA to watch the Cheltenham debacle. USA to Grimsby to Sheffield. The lives we lead in this mix of concrete and abstract geography are things of wonder. My sofa is comfier than the seats in the Crucible. Ian McDiarmid is a more solid presence on stage than the MarinersTV footage on living room screens.

You know Ian McDiarmid. He's been playing the emperor/Darth Sidious in Star Wars for the last century. The Steve Cotterill of Hollywood, if you like. Pale and wrinkly, lightning bolts arcing from his fingers. Watching 'Cotts' embrace the dark side yet again (DA: 'he tried walloping Pearson last year') as he went for Shelton at full time was as embarrassing as it was performative. Old man assumes he can act as he likes because he used to be relevant. "Thou shouldst not have been old till thou had been wise."

The game itself has been overshadowed by the full-time fracas at Whaddon Road and we all know who Ray Shearwood is now. Our first-team coaching analyst got a red card as he went shouldering into Cotterill after the Cheltenham boss had stepped onto the pitch to start on Mark Shelton. Shearwood the protector! Arise Sir Ray of Shearwood.

All of this masculine dancing distracted from another frustrating afternoon. Tuesday at Accrington and Saturday at Cheltenham, the middling Mariners chucked away goals and chances like crippled Frisbee players tossing their discs in a Shakespearean storm.

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!

We certainly defended like cocks. Four goals given away across two games while chances at the other end went begging. We're in the eye of the Cook storm conundrum: too old to be everything we want him to be; too effective to not be in the starting line-up. Or, as Regan put it:

O, sir, you are old:
Nature in you stands on the very verge
Of her confine.

Don't die, Andy; we need you! But please put a few more of those chances away.

Were Artell's comments on an "insipid first half" aimed at Vernam? King Charles has given away his kingdom to ingrate-daughters and now wanders the left wing as a beggar-king. The season is yet to start for this diarist's favourite player. Am I Gloucester? Have I lost my eyes, found my king and begged to kiss his hand only to be told, "Let me wipe it first; it smells of mortality."

I keep flicking my eyes back up to the third paragraph and my use of "debacle". Am I being harsh? We got a heroic second-half fightback and a punch up. What more can I ask for on a Saturday afternoon? And yet, I was left mardy. It was Lear's fault. I'd intended to ignore the football and get to Sheffield in time for a curry somewhere. Youngest – theatre, rather than football partner – decided he wanted the afternoon for college homework. He meant it too. He's not like Middle and Eldest. I hadn't wanted the distraction because I knew it was going to make me mardy. Self-fulfilling mardiness?

No one was mardy about young Cartwright and older Shelton's debuts; they look like they'll improve us. The lanky frame of Cartwright coupled with Rodgers surely makes our right side the tallest in the history of everything. Shelton's appearance was especially encouraging. He plays well and he speaks well, understanding the game and the communities it serves. We're going to need to remind ourselves that he's not ours. And scoring with his first ever touch as a Town player? "We that are young shall never see so much, nor live so long."

We're all still mardy about the goalkeeper situation. Harrington did sign and Artell admitted he tried to loan him before Pym was injured on Tuesday night. We can have him for a week but not for three months? Or a whole season? Just for emergencies. These aren't emergencies. This is three seasons in a row. Jamestown doesn't do goalkeepers but if they did, etc. Harrington looks fine. We're going to want him to stay. He won't.

We've got a week off and only three games left in September. Plenty of time for coaching and analysis of coaching. Plenty of time for the team to be a team. Plenty of time for Cook to recover and be able to start all three. We're going to need him.