Cod Almighty | Diary

For Auld Lang Syne's Sake, Town!

31 December 2025

New Year's Eve and exactly halfway through the season. What better time to take stock of how things are going? And what worse diarist to do so than the research-allergic BOTB? 

Actually I'm going to surprise you. I've discovered that the internet is a positive mine of information. All you have to do is type questions into an internet search engine (popular ones are Google, QuackQuackOops and Ask Jeeves) and you can find out pretty much any fact you like. It's amazing! 

I started with the League Two table exactly a year ago today. Town were in sixth position with five more points than we have currently. We had actually lost more (10 against 8), the difference coming entirely on the back of the fact that we had managed to turn draws into victories. So what does this tell us? Very little, to be honest. No wonder I don't normally do any research. It's a right waste of time.

Though I did see a small reason for optimism. In a year Bradford have gone from 10th in League Two to third in League One. What a year for the Buntums! If they can do it, we can do it. Disclaimer: we probably can't do it. 

This is my first post-victory diary for some time, the victory made even more special by the fact that we beat a team in our own division, and even better a team in our division with 11 men. Heady days indeed. Obviously we have been highly hamstrung this season by not having enough forwards. If Kabia had been injured a few weeks ago, we could have been playing Steve Croudson upfront in desperation. 

With Cam still injured and Danny Rose looking a selfie of his former shadow when he has appeared, its been an obvious problem. Kabbs has gone from "great prospect and non-league jewel plucked from the dirt" to "little weedy kid who gets pushed over by the playground bullies" in a remarkably short space of time. To many of us he looks like he needs to be on the wing or playing with a big fatboy striker who takes the attention of the centre-halves and performs imaginary flicks for his pacy sidekick to run onto. I get the impression that David Artell doesn't really like forwards and his dream team consists of a goalkeeper and ten midfielders who all score exactly seven goals apiece by the end of the season. I do like forwards and would like to see him forget his purist principles and get in a unit followed by putting the ball into the mixer. We're not trying to break down Inter Milan here. In this division, as Rachel Riley would confirm if she was here, 1 Unit plus 1 Mixer = 1 Goal. And that's maths. You can't argue with maths. 

Against the Shrovesberries I bought two tickets for friends who normally watch Hull City, who are high up in the Championship as we speak (Hull City not the friends). Well, obviously being Hull fans I can't really call them friends. Acquaintances, perhaps. Or mortal enemies. Anyway, one observed that it takes us several hours of fiddling about on the wing before we put it in the area and asked why we do it. The answers are simple: by having three people on the wing doing little triangles ad infinitum it means there is no-one in the box if you eventually get the cross in. Secondly, if there is someone in the box it makes it impossible for him to time his run because he has no idea when the ball is going to arrive; and thirdly, it gives the defenders time to organise. Duh! I hate having to explain the basics of the game to Hull fans, and what's worse they seemed just as bemused after I'd explained it to them. There's no hope for some people. 

So, we stand, or, if lazy, sit on the threshold of a brand new year. I would like to wish everyone reading this a splendid year, because I've learnt from bitter experience that years, as a class, can be unreliable. But what else do we have to live in? Nothing. 

Here's a nice seasonal football picture. It's not the one I wanted but it's the one Ask Jeeves gave me. UTFM!