Cod Almighty | Diary

The prawn crackers of victory

19 January 2026

Miss Guest Diary writes: There were times in Saturday's match when the tension was almost unbearable, when it felt as if either side could score/concede in the blink of an eye. Our defence was definitely less robust after Duck Farm went off injured, not least because McJannet seems to make errors through over-compensation when he doesn't have Big Doug alongside him. To be fair, I enjoyed the helter-skelter nature of the game tremendously, but only when reflecting upon it after the final whistle. I'm sure it was a great watch for the neutral, but of course we are not and never could be neutral when it comes to watching Town.

When you spend as much time as Mr B and I do watching, thinking and writing about Town the result on a Saturday will colour the whole weekend and a win certainly lightens the mood. We added to the jeopardy of Saturday's result by promising ourselves a Chinese takeaway if Town won; not winning would mean stopping in at the new Aldi in Market Rasen for the less appetising dinner of a frozen pizza. So, thank you Jayden Sweeney.

From the doom and gloom of pre-Christmas when Town hadn't won in the league for two months and there were whispers about sinking towards the relegation zone, Town have now won their last three league games and kept four clean sheets. We are looking upwards once more – only five points off the play offs. Unfortunately, our next two league games are both long away trips – Cheltenham and Colchester. We might get something from the Cheltenham game, though they are nowhere near as bad as they were at our ground, having changed their manager after the 7-1 defeat. They have lost three of their last four league games, but their home form still isn't bad. I never expect Town to get anything from games against Colchester, whether home or away, though looking back at the results I see our three wins against them in the last five years have all been at their ground. Well you never know.

Before those trips Town also have a game on Tuesday, down the road at Cleethorpes Town, in the semi-final of the Lincolnshire Senior Cup. One hopes that the game will be used as an opportunity to give a run out to some of the squad players, returners from injury and youth team graduates, while at the same time the team will be strong enough to have a good chance of winning. The other semi-final is between Boston and Lincoln and a chance to see Town play a competitive game against either of these county rivals would be fun.

Tomorrow's match was originally going to be the rearranged fixture from the last FA Cup weekend against Salford but that's been further postponed to a date yet to be announced. I'm not too sorry as I learned on Saturday that the proprietors of the Ocean Fish Bar are taking a well-earned holiday which would have put Mr B into a flat spin at having to change our pre-match ritual.

But it all turned out nice in the end on Saturday, with chips and some Khouri sauce.