Cod Almighty | Diary

It's not how you start, it's how you finish

30 July 2025

The Beginning.

Firstly, I must inform you, dear reader, that this will be the final VFTF weekly Wednesday diary. Our hugely rewarding partnership with Cod Almighty draws to a close today, nevertheless we will remain loyal readers and occasional contributors. So, our diary slot is ending, but thankfully the first match of the new football season is now only a couple of days away.

Last season and all those that have gone before are now history. On Saturday we start afresh, with a new pitch, new kits, new players, new oppositions to face and new challenges to overcome. All the currently unknown highs and lows of the 2025-26 season will slowly be revealed to us and none of us really know where we will end up.

We begin with a home match against Crawley Town. Tickets are selling fast, but I have manged to get four seats together in the newly-named Ramsden's Home Interiors Stand. Yeah, that doesn't exactly roll off the tongue and I will no doubt keep calling it the Findus out of habit, but kudos to the club for the additional income this deal has brought in. I have also heard rumours that another stand may be getting renamed very soon as well. Could this commercial volte-face have been inspired by my previous diary, or does it perhaps prove that we are a club fortunate to be run by good people doing good things. Yeah, it's probably the latter, isn't it?

Our opponents on Saturday do not have the local lads done good ownership model. Crawley Town are owned by WAGMI United Ltd. For those who don't know anything about online crypto acronyms such as WAGMI, FUD, DYOR, etc then let me explain.

WAGMI stands for "We're All Gonna Make It" and is an optimistic proclamation that the market is looking good and everyone is going to make some money. The crypto bros running Crawley Town all appear to have financially 'made it'; however at the risk of spreading FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt), their manifesto shows just how little they understand the institution they own. If you can bring yourself to get past Goal 3 then I advise you to DYOR (Do Your Own Research) and see just how crazy the whole thing sounds.

Way before WAGMI Ltd got involved, we kicked off our first season in non-league with an away match at Crawley Town. I remember going down on the train and none of us quite knew what to expect after our miserable relegation from the football league. A cheeky Lee Peacock free kick following a red card for the Crawley goalkeeper settled the match and we all went home thinking we were in for a very brief and very fun stay in non-league. But it is not always how you start that matters but how you end.

Needless to say, Crawley Town ran away with the league, finishing 15 points clear. We finished 11th and what followed was my most depressing period of following Town - watching the teams of Woods, Scott and Hurst so often flounder against weaker opposition and never really looking like a team destined for promotion. Again, though, fast forward to the end of that sorry sojourn in non-league and Nathan Arnold's goal to send us back up was one of my best Town moments in recent years. A truly happy ending after six years of soul-sapping non-league purgatory.

So, Saturday's game is important, but whatever the result it is just one of the 46 league games we will play this season. Starting new things is quite easy and it's typically exciting and invigorating. Ending something well, however, requires hard work, navigating challenges and making difficult decisions. All of this resonates with football. Be it singular matches, whole seasons or even periods of club ownership.
The poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow summed up the importance of endings more neatly than I ever could:

Great is the art of the beginning, but greater is the art of ending
Many a poem is marred by a superfluous verse.

That final line feels like my cue to leave. Thank you to everyone who read our diaries, thank you to those who listen to our podcasts and thank you Cod Almighty for letting us contribute to this special part of the internet.

The End.