Cod Almighty | Article

by Various

17 May 2025

Ever since I was a young boy we've been playing them at football, from Grimsby down to Swindon, some have seen them all. Good times and bad times, you know we've had our share.

There's an elephant in the dressing room, there's a lorra-lorra loathing, so let's not speak it's name. Let's just wallow in the mystery and misery of the Wiltshire wilters.

All shuffle round in circles

Ah, the mighty Robins, five times league champions with a litany of legends: Barry Briggs, Martin Ashby, Big Bob Kilby and don't forget Pheromone Phil Crump!

Oh, not those Robins, speedway's just a sideshow these days.

Administratively, financially, footbally the Rocking Robins have been all over the place for decades. Up, down, down, down, up and down again, a furiously spinning managerial door; historical faces in hysterical places. It's been a magic carpet ride, which is almost apposite given the magic roundabout spinning away outside their gates. XTC were inspired by it, you know. Did the pelican crossing outside the Imp do the same for Rod Temperton? Did the flashing green man and incessant beeping provide the template for Thriller? Well, maybe it inspired the video rather than the song, especially on match days.

We can't avoid the elephant in the dressing room any longer…they've flippin' ruined XTC for me.

Swindon, you see, they get in the way and have a habit of ruining our day. It's a long way to go to be annoyed as our Rough Guider noted way back on 2006:

"It really would have been nice if we'd gone up, then we wouldn't have that long, pointless journey to the middle of nowhere…which is exactly what they think of us too."

In 2023, after another terrible away day pounding, Miss Guest Diary tried to be philosophical and all grown up about it:

"I think, but I wouldn't swear, that Saturday was my eleventh visit to the County Ground since I started supporting Town. I have seen us win there only twice. Both games ended 1-0…the second being the infamous game in 2018 where we were awarded a spot kick after Harry Cardwell tripped over his own feet.

Saturday's 5-0 loss came nowhere near being my worst experience there – in fact, it was relatively painless by comparison. My worst experience was definitely the 3-2 defeat in 1994…"

Ah, yes. That game. It may have been in the pre-internet age where everything was in black and white but we Pontoon pachyderms never forget. Another time, another world when way back then we were both somebodies, both contenders. Swindon had just been relegated from the Premiership, Town a solid mid-table yeoman. The Buckley Babes were winning 2-1 on 90 minutes, the homesters a dead parrot, nailed to their perch, when suddenly the air turned blue at the antics of a Norwegian. Not once, but twice:

"…some egregious diving by Jan Age Fjortoft caused me to stand up and hurl some very unladylike words at Fjortoft, while Mr Butcher, in his pre-match reporting days, traumatised a small Swindon boy by furiously flinging open a toilet door in frustration."

You know he still does that every time he goes to the County Ground, it's tradition, an homage, but this year they'd finally put springs and a door stop in. It's just not the same. The game's gone. It's a far cry from small boys in the park, jumpers for goalpost and slamming doors in Swindon, marvellous. Young people today with their hot air dryers and running water…

Wait, there's more petty peevishness induced down Wiltshire way!

Our Bottom of the Barrel diarist recounted his brother's sudden explosion at seeing something strange in the neighbourhood:

"…his diatribes about Leeds fans being uncouth were a bit rich. I was once driving through Swindon with him when we passed a boy of about 12 wearing a Manchester United shirt. Retro lowered the car window and shouted "You should be supporting Swindon, you little XXXX". He won't mention that in any of his philosophical musings on the beautiful game, will he? Oh, no. The ultra-civilised Socrates won't be spreading that little anecdote to his acolytes.

Mind you, he was right.”

Swindon's not all bad memories for us. Chris Parker took a curiously circuitous route to Newport one year and accidentally had a brief encounter with some delightful Swindon fans heading to Cardiff…for Wrestlemania. Steve Meek, the face of Cod Almighty admitted:

"I've been to Swindon a few times and it is, however, no worse than most places. Indeed, it is much better than Reading, which is admittedly a low bar."

And Tony Butcher, the phantom door flinger of the Old County ground, still waxes lyrical about the collection of knitted local celebrities in the municipal museum. Oh the minutes of mirth trying to distinguish Dors from Messenger from Piper which turned out to be Justin Hayward. And don't we all still chortle about that match in 1996-97 which Neville Butt recalled in a stroll through a history of abandoned games:

“…after Rodgers was sent off Swindon took the lead from 25 yards and they were leading 1-0 when referee Halsey decided in the 31st minute that the pitch had taken a frozen turn for the worse. He signalled the abandonment with the gusto of an ice hockey referee at the end of a game."

Nev wasn't quick enough out of the ground to see that the Town players had raced off the pitch and hopped onto the coach still wearing their kit before the ref could change his mind.

Swindon have been trumping us in the Top Town stakes for years. Pat Bell peered through the windows of lost time reflecting on the way life used to be and could have been. Swindon was just a heartbeat away from being our stepping stone to what would have been history:

"The League Cup run of 1979 was a life-changing event. I was an adolescent schoolboy in mid-Wales. The only action I saw from the games were Mike Brolly's goals against Everton, shown the following weekend on Football Focus. After beating Everton, we were in the quarter-finals, against Wolves. We drew with them twice.

As every Grimbarian should know, in the first replay we came from 1-0 down and in extra time Mike Brolly hit the bar. Swindon were waiting in the semi-final and whoever won would be favourites to reach Wembley. We were closer then than at any time since the war to competing for major honours.”

So close, yet so far, yet "So what" say the Swindonites. The old League Cup is the acme of their footballing lives. Some people think the moon landings were the big story of 1969, but down in Wiltshire they still swoon at monochrome memories of Don Rogers' double, on a Wembley pitch helpfully ploughed up by the Horse of the Year Show the week before. Arsenal were stuffed like a partridge 3-1. As Baz Whittleton recalled in an old Rough Guide:

"Winning the League Cup should have brought entry to the European Fairs Cup, a forerunner of the UEFA Cup, but the FA had ruled after QPR won in 1967 that only top flight teams could take part.

As compensation, the Anglo-Italian League Cup was organised – and they beat Roma 5-2 in the two-legged final. The following year, the inaugural Anglo-Italian Cup saw the Mighty Robins play Napoli in the final. With Swindon leading 3-0 the game was abandoned after 79 minutes after the home fans went berserk, raining down a fusillade of rocks and bottles, setting fire to the stands and prompting the police to retaliate with teargas."

Sure puts slamming a toilet door in perspective.

These are the full versions of the Cod Almighty programme articles for the 2024/25 season. An edited version was published in The Mariner on 18 April 2025