Cod Almighty | Diary

Never forgive. Never forget.

24 April 2025

There's a delicious irony that the Mariners play in black and white. We have dark days; we have bright days. However many goals we can score with one fit striker, our back line will find ways to concede a few more with five fit defenders. David Artell's both a smart cookie and a clueless clown, depending on which Main Stand fan you talk to. He's got us into the play-off positions, but we're also not averse to the occasional walloping.

Town got a good point at Port Vale but made it feel like a defeat. Our draw at Harrogate felt like a defeat, too. And our mauling at the hands of Swindon…well, that was a defeat. A proper stuffing at that. Just two points from a possible nine, with a play-off-thirsty pack hunting us down, and yet we still hold a one-point advantage with 180 minutes of football left to play. Work that one out!

It seemed to your West Yorkshire Diary that, on Good Friday, our race had been run. It was a performance that suggested there was very little left in the Town tank. Our best and most consistent players of the season all looked leggy and lethargic in front of a sell-out crowd, and all were hauled off in the second half as if the manager was making some sort of statement.

No amount of Jamestown data could then explain Monday's rousing response. It so nearly earned us three points at a team that had the opportunity to secure promotion in front of a full house if results went their way. The result they needed most didn't go their way because Artell's changes made a difference. Eastwood and Vernam were excellent, while Warren seamlessly deputised for McJannet. Town had taken a nice healthy stride into the play offs with a quarter of an hour of the match left to play, only to end the day desperately wedging the door open with a foot.

We've lost seventeen games in the league this season. No other team has conceded more goals at home than us. We continue to operate with a negative goal difference – we're the only team in the top fourteen that is in the red on that score. When you think of some of the no-shows we've endured this season, like at Notts County, Bradford, Barrow and Swindon, and some of the feeble home defeats we've witnessed, to Doncaster, Walsall, Colchester, Crewe, Swindon, Bastard Franchise and Salford – where we didn't even have a shot on target – it's incredible that this season could yet end in promotion.

If it does, it'll be down to the 20 (and counting) victories, and the 14 times we've held on for the win by the odd goal. We've needed resolve to win those games; very few came comfortably. That same resolve wasn't quite there at Harrogate or Port Vale. Previous managers have been defined by such relinquishes (and ear-cupping), the only difference here is that there wasn't a substitute whose name naturally and alliteratively paired with a term used for two-goal concessions.

This kind of up-and-downery has echoes of the Bignot era, where a young, up-and-coming manager with a promotion under his belt quickly identified a dearth of technical ability in the Town ranks and experimented to the point where one week we'd lose badly at home to, say, Doncaster, and the next we'd win away at some promotion-hunting team, like Blackpool.

Heavy home defeats weren't tolerated eight years ago because the term 'trust the process' hadn't yet been added to football's fables and phrases dictionary. And Fenty was pulling the strings. And we weren't seventh. Those are important differences probably worth making.

And so, ladies and gentlemen, there remain just two fixtures – and only one of them is against a legitimate football club.

The promise of a potential play-off spot has forced many a Town fan to seemingly park their moral compass for a moment, and ditch their football ethics. It's likely that around 2,000 Mariners will be descending the M1 on Saturday to hand their hard-earned cash over to the scumbags that stole a football club from its community.

It may have happened over two decades ago, but some of us are not prepared to let it go. The Qatar World Cup happened, where people like Gary Lineker and Gary Neville still went despite their protestations. The tender scene of a 70-year-old Newcastle supporter crying with his son after witnessing his club win their first piece of silverware in his lifetime gave precisely no airtime to the Saudi money that made it possible.

Franchise football and sportswashing is happening, as are B teams. We wanted to push back against it, but where are we now? Winkleman, the Premier League, and the Saudi state got what they wanted: fan tolerance. It seems no one wants to talk about the insidious nature of how they did it. Brushed under the carpet of history we'd rather ignore. We'll be told to move on, get over it, it's happened.

As successful businessmen who know the value a football club has in a working-class community, Jason Stockwood and Andrew Pettit, I imagine, will be very aware of the Wimbledon story. They will understand, even in the middle of a play-off push, why a few of us will always refuse to take part in any event where our money makes its way to a franchise club – who, it should also be noted, are indirectly owned by a consortium based in Kuwait, just another country whose human rights record faces heavy criticism.

Fans choose not to attend matches for a variety of reasons, usually because they're too costly, too far away, or too inconvenient. Sometimes, we just don't fancy it, and that's fine. Franchise football, however, is just as much of a valid reason to not go.

This is just one game. Wimbledon was (and is) an entire club. The protest continues. No one should take the identity thieves seriously, ever. While I wouldn't want to wish any one person harm, I also don't want that club to flourish. Otherwise, what message does that send out to the other Winklemans of this world, just waiting in the wings with wishes to whisk another club away from its natural habitat?

In this increasingly black and white world, the fanchise club represents a dark past while AFC Wimbledon represents a bright fuutre. A reminder to anyone that loyalty and identity runs deeper than any millionaire's pockets.

Never forgive, never forget. If there’s any justice in the football world, the Mariners will emerge victorious this weekend. UTM!