Cod Almighty | Diary

Who needs a hobby like tennis or philately? I re-read Lady Chatterley

1 October 2026

D.H. Lawrence is very rarely quoted by Grimsby Town fans to the best of your Guest Diarist's knowledge. But this passage from Lady Chatterley's Lover seems timely and apt in a week dominated by folk injecting monies into their football clubs both legally and illicitly: "Money poisons you when you've got it and starves you when you haven't". Manchester City fans are pretending to be shocked that their club's massive spending in order to steamroll their neighbours and the league was all kosher whilst Grimsby Town fans quietly tip their hats to the owners who keep the club on an even keel with low-key share injections whenever they become necessary. Another £3million has just gone into the balance sheet. 1878 are not poisoning the club, but applying the deadly stuff in purely medicinal doses. We are damn lucky to have them – they keep quietly doing it so this was not an entirely unexpected item in the bragging area.

Ground-hoppers alert! With Autumn closing in, start working on your Night Moves to visit Abbey Lawn, the home of Bourne Town, as Town will visit them in the quarter final of Big Cup in late November. Bourne has been going since 1883 but realised just after the war that they needed a nickname. Self-given nicknames rarely stick, as anyone who has ever read Catch 22 might remember, so the Bournians ran a competition with a fiver for the winner to come up with one and he grooved into the early English vibe and suggested The Wakes. Hereward the Wake, who roamed the fens trying to mess up the Norman invaders was reckoned to be a descendant of Leofric of Bourne. So there's the link I suppose, and The Frics were never gonna cut it were they?

Well, it was biscuit week in the tent and time for you, gentle reader, to suggest which biscuit best represents which player. I will kick it off by claiming that Maldini is like a pink iced party ring. Why? He is hard, pink and delicious of course. A party ring rarely disappoints, just like Maldini.

I sometimes find it hard to concentrate on matches on the telly that I don't care about and find myself hypnotised by the digital advertising hoardings. Don't tell me that you have never found yourself watching that dog digitally running down the touchline. Lately there has been a lot of Kelloggs action for some strange reason. I even noticed a static advert for cornflakes at the Osmond end of our ground. Quite why anyone would go to a match and think 'Oh! I must buy some cereal!' I don't know. But I do know that our beloved CEO is beavering away to get digital ads running along the Main Stand side. I get all the reasons why, but I fervently hope that we mostly have local ads and not the insanely irritating pan-national ones. 3Q for example are the modern equivalent of, say, Norris the Rubberman or Cosalt or Freddie Frith. Think how proud you you used to feel when Pearl & Dean ran an ad for a local Indian restaurant that you actually frequented. I suppose I am saying keep Blundell Park's heritage and local connections as alive as you can. See yer.

P.S. I buy my cornflakes from Lidldidllidl, 95p for a big box.