Cod Almighty | Diary

Oh God

18 March 2022

Oh god. I've just watched a video of some pissed idiots in the early hours of the morning, idioting, pissedly. Ooh, there's some shouting abuse. Ooh, there's some half-assed, pathetic drunken handbags. My word, one of the pissed idiot men has spat in a woman's face. What an absolutely odious clownshoe that man must be. One of the men, not the spitter, is Town's best player. Well, that's just what we need at this crucial stage of the season.

Before passing judgement I would like to know MacAtee's version of events, seeing as how there are two sides to every story and that kind of malarkey. But even if he turns out to be relatively innocent, hanging about with spitting arseholes - great punk band, by the way, in their day – is not a good look. This is a young man who clearly needs a brain that functions as well as his boots. He is very lucky to be a professional footballer, very lucky to have fans who look up to him and very lucky to be earning reasonable money. It might be a good idea for him to stop getting involved in tedious dickery, find some new friends and grow the fuck up.

Tomorrow we take on plucky play-off rivals Boreham Wood. Some Town fans are calling for our early hours fanny-abouterer to be dropped and fined, some are convinced he did little wrong and some think he should be thrown out of the club. Sadly, Hurst's view of the matter may well have some bearing on tomorrow's result, because the awful truth is that MacAtee is a very important player to us. I don't know what we should do. Luckily it isn't my decision. Whatever Hurst does some will be critical of him.

How do you feel about Scunny's imminent relegation? Since we will probably be in the Conference waiting for them with a cup of tea and a biscuit, we can hardly put on our smug and superior face and smirk annoyingly. I mean, yes, it is funny at one level, but at another that's two of Lincolnshire's professional teams swimming around in the footballing equivalent of a sewage outfall. Lincolnshire is an over-farmed green abyss with only one tourist attraction in a massive county, but that doesn't mean I'm not very fond of the place and want it to impose itself on the nation's consciousness. It would be funnier and more edifying if we were in the third tier and they were dropping out of the second tier to join us. The current rivalry has the uncomfortable feeling of two prisoners squabbling over the bottom bunk bed.

Retro diary has sent me the following tribute to Norman Darnill. I never knew Norman except as a voice over the phone but he will certainly be sadly missed.

This week saw the very sad passing of Norman Darnill. Maybe not a name you might recognise but a lovely man and one of our town's distinguished football people. He undertook the day-to-day running of Rotherham United for 20 years, including steering the club through the notorious Anton Johnson era, but was actually a massive Town fan throughout, never relinquishing his home base in Humberston. He did have some dealings with our club, helping to broker the original stand/kit deal with Findus, and he was a close and lasting friend to both George Kerr and John Newman. His knowledge and stories about the inner workings of football (one of which, believe it or not, involved the Krays and a crocodile) could frankly have kept Cod Almighty going for years. Even in his last days and in desperate health he would cling to each new Town signing's every stat and would never miss a JT commentary. In the end I have no doubt that following Town prolonged his life which, let's face it, is a principle worth clinging to for all of us.

Anyway, good luck to the fans going to 'The Wood' tomorrow, and let's hope our players are worthy of our acclaim. Up the stripes. Come on now. Win.