Cod Almighty | Diary

Are you FED UP with your CONSERVATORY!?!?

4 April 2025

We are faced with a bit of a manpower crisis here. With the star men injured and the regular reliable perfomers out for the count, tough decisions have to be made. The crowd won't be happy, but BOTB Diary has been drafted back in at this crucial stage of the season. Surely the least the loyal fans can expect is that he'll give 100% commitment to the club and the shirt? Sadly, I can't promise that. I've got to take some small electricals to the dump before lunch. 

Having had technical difficultuies with my in-car entertainment system, I've been forced to listen to snippets of commercial radio whilst fiddling with leads and sockets. One advert I hear frequently starts out with a man shouting 'Are you FED UP with your CONSERVATORY!?!' For my own entertainment I've started shouting back at the radio things like "DAMN RIGHT I AM! I'M SICK TO DEATH OF MY CONSERVATORY'S SHIT' or 'IF THAT CONSERVATORY WINDS ME UP ONE MORE TIME I SWEAR I'LL DO TIME!" I mention this because this is pretty much the way I feel about footballing fate at the moment. 

On the surface everything is groovy. After a horrible season last time round in which supporting my local football team felt like I'd just swallowed a whole egg, this year has seen a magical improvement. We are in a play-off place and about to play the second from bottom club at home. Yet football fate keeps insisting on fedding me right up. 

It started after last Friday's lovely three points at Colchester. Town captain, talisman and whippersnapper Danny Rose decided - wrongly in my opinion - to get the concussions, and was forced to miss out at Crewe. With no other forwards who aren't on the disability allowances this led to a complete restructuring of the team. The Great God of Football then decided to give us a referee who would have been struggling to control a game of table tennis and an opposition who delighted in exploiting this fact. Result: no points and frustration everywhere you look.

Also, with Morecambe winning and Tranmere losing, tomorrow's opponents are suddenly faced with the tantalising prosepct of unlikely survival. I mean, they'll still be bloody awful, that's why they are down there in the first place, but they won't be bloody awful and on the beach at the same time, unless that beach is Normandy. Gah!

Nobody seems to know whether Rose will be allowed to play tomorrow, and with Keir Starmer's benefit reforms unlikely to happen fast enough to get any of our other strikers off the sick and back onto the bench, it could well be a difficult game, played, like all our other home matches this season, on difficult terrain and with an edgy home crowd. But remember everyone; this has been a good season.

We probably aren't good enough to go up anyway. We have had a lot of injuries. Fenty lives in Spain and cannot hurt us now. Spring is here and my daffodils look lovely. And, best of all, we are mathematically safe from relegation. Looking at the weather forecast - 10 degrees and sunny with a cool breeze - my guess is that the game is going to be ON. Just to confirm, the game is currently ON and the least we can do is go and supoort these great players for their efforts this season whatever happens now. They've done us proud, whatever footballing fate has thrown at them. UTM. 

PS I don't even own a conservatory.