Cod Almighty | Diary

Fish and six please - with scraps

11 December 2025

As the deep red sunrise lifted your Guest Diarist's mood in the bright open December dawn I thought "Great! today I get to use my postcard joke." Dropping my 29 year old micro pickup off for its annual inspection I got to say piston broke?  So am I! Dad joke? More like great grandad joke. My local chip shop growing up (Rodwells) had a fine collection of what my Mother called 'saucy postcards' on display to pacify and entertain the queue that built up after closing time at the pub. Different times.

Town's recent lengthening run without a league victory feels a bit like driving the M25 - you know you will get there eventually - we just have to sit it out, but when is a big question. As Stoppard wrote "eternity is a terrible thought - I mean where is it all going to end?" Existential dread man, what a drag.

Optimists can hark back to '89 when the team had an identical record and sat one place lower at 14th at this stage but we finished 2nd. They can also point at the playing stats which says we should have won almost every game and claim that if we continue in the same vein results will come our way consistently. After the last failure, if a midweek away match far from home against a team in form at home is even a failure, Mr Artell's face looked worried. He is no poker face and he knows a blip or two has ratcheted up into whatever the next stage above a blip is. A big home game against a resurgent County might just be what the Mariners need. Let's hope we get a performance with fewer mistakes, some goals and a result. So break out the hats and hooters when Grimsby come home - let's get some pride back in the neighbourhood.

If we beat Weston the prize money is £121,500. That will take our FA Cup prize money this season so far to about £250,000. Plus the profits from all those cup home games - modest maybe but it all helps, especially when we need the obligatory couple of signings in January to 'freshen things up'. The chorus for a right back is very loud but our manager is a stubborn bugger. See yer.