Cod Almighty | Diary

You say you want a resolution

2 January 2026

Your A46 Diary should have a lot to say this week; lots of games, positive results, solid defending, chances created, but it all feels very much like the last couple of months except that we’re winning now and not playing as well as we were. I’m not complaining. Well, not complaining a lot. Seeing the team drag itself and us away from chat about a relegation fight meant lots of celebrations chez A46, and plaudits were spilled over what turned out to be perfect performances of bad-run-breaking at home to Shrewsbury on Monday and away at Fleetwood yesterday. Added to the 0-0 on Boxing Day against Oldham and we’re suddenly the one-goal wonders of the division.

But it all sounds the same: better team, more touches, more chances, higher this and higher that. Yet the most exciting moments in the games – goals aside, obvs - are Smith’s saves. Remember when Artell promised us that where we’re going, we don’t need roads? No? You're right, he didn’t. Or did he?

Remember Back to the Future 2? Of course you do. Remember what it promised us? Flying cars, self-drying clothes, self-tying trainers, holographic film posters, food printed at home, robots refuelling cars, LED messages on coppers’ hats and, of course, hover boards. When was the film set? 2015. Ten years ago. (Eleven years ago! Happy New Year!) Where’s my flying car? Where's my back-ache-curing-hovering-thingy? Where's my printed donner kebab? Where's my promised system of deliberately engineered goal-scoring opportunities? Where's my evolution from hoping to score to ensuring we score? Where are the goals going to come from? Dropped in by flying cars that never were.

Churlish? Yes. It's the fatigue, I suppose. And despite yesterday's goal being a thing of beauty in an otherwise drab encounter in a windy northwest, I am feeling the drag of the drab football. Where did that drabness come from? Artell insists it was the ‘dreadful’ pitch that meant he gave players instructions to go long and those long, hopeful punts, clearly evident at BP as well as Highbury, that are killing whatever hope we had in Artell-ball.

Wishing for the future creates the death of hope. I wanted to write about a phrase I thought I was coining, Jetsons fatigue, but it turns out that that's already a thing that I can’t be bothered to read up on. So, instead, I’ll write without a witty aphoristic label.

Years ago, there was a cartoon, a not-quite-spin-off from The Flintstones called The Jetsons, set in 2062, one hundred years in the future from when it was written, 1962. It promised similar things to Back to the Future 2, the easier life, the mod-cons and sentient artificial life that would enable us to focus on an existence that can finally be made worth living, rather than this dusty essence of a desperate rat race of hoofing it into the channels for a skilful but delicate front three to fail to chase down. Or a Marty McFly front three whose promises are dust.

That is beyond harsh, I know, given the promising displays of Soonsup-Bell, a lad much better suited to starting a game than trying to make an impact from the bench. So, to focus again on the future, a Jetsons front three whose promise is yet to be delivered. 2062 is a long way away. Thirty-six years to get those cars and robots and life worth living into action. It can be done; all we need do is to make reasonable demands about the fairness of the allocation and administration of resources.

Who wouldn't listen to reasonable demands and put two up top? Who wouldn’t lose themselves in the Green conundrum of play-him-and-limit-the-ball-playing-quality or don’t-play-him-and-lose-physicality debate? The Jetsons promise a Greenless future in which he’s not needed, a future of Walkers and Gilsenans will hypnotise League Two defences into a stupefied inertia that allows for the beauty of Artell-ball to blossom and Soonsup-Bells to bang in hat tricks in the second half of the 21st century?

After a decade of cryogenic freezing in the 2050s, Artell will return as head coach, determined to fulfil his promise to the fans that their donations to the upkeep of his life pod will be repaid ten times over in his still-mortal afterlife of Mariners magic. The season rests on that deadline shortening to mid-Feb 2026. Can we do it? Yes. Will we do it? Wait and see.

Cambridge on Sunday. According to your A46 Diary, the yellow thugs were to be the other slice of bread in a battered Town leftover turkey sandwich. Not so with the unexpected win against Fleetwood, but their thuggish raid on BP earlier in the season showed that we will struggle to stand up to their brutish behaviour and belligerent bludgeoning. They sit in fifth, a position promised by our early-season form, but that form was as real as the Jetson jetpacks that were to be fitted to our flying wingers.

It's back to the grit and the grind, the quotidian, channel-running tedium, and you never know, this more practical and more hopeful Town may be better suited to the Cambridge cutthroats. Fingers crossed for short-term gains, long-term hopes and promises of not needing roads.