Cod Almighty | Diary

Too Many Cooks Spoil the Salmon

21 January 2026

Danny Boy, the stripes, the stripes are no longer calling. Thanks, man. But don't you dare score against us or we'll put tariffs on whatever the hell it is they make in Barrow.

BOTB diaries before Christmas might have been slightly on the gloomy side, but heyho rumbelow, what a difference a few weeks makes. No goals conceded in four league games, and 10 juicy points on the board since the King's speech means we can start looking at the play-offs rather than wondering about how Harrogate are doing. 

Amidst the controversy on Saturday when the referee failed to see an incident and then sent off the wrong player, one question seems to be consistently ignored. How stupid are some professional footballers? There are 12 minutes gone in a fascinating clash between two teams with ambition, and already there have been chances at both ends. I know, thinks footballer 1, I'll run past one of their players who is just getting off the ground, miles from the ball, after a tackle I wasn't involved in, and smack him in the chops. What could possibly go wrong? Yes, if someone sees it - there are only 6,000 people watching after all - I'll get sent off and lose the game for my team, but on the plus side, if I can get away with it one of their players might have sore chops. If I'd been the Barnet manager - admittedly unlikely given my life's trajectory - I would have spent less time moaning about referees and more time doing brain scans on my players, to see if they had any.

So, last night we played Cleethorpes and it went OK. Andy Cooks scored a penno and as far as I know there were no casualties. When playing Cleethorpes Town this is a very important caveat, since last tiime we played them in the notorious battle of Meggies Arcade fourteen Town players had their careers/lives ended and many more retired to live a quiet life in the country, or succumbed to alcohol and substance abuse.

One thing I noticed about the Cooks in his cameo against Barnet was that he'd mastered the art of jumping and hanging in the air, 'like a salmon' as it is customary to write at this point. Actually, last year I went to a place in Scotland where salmon jump about a lot and none of them were as good at it as Andy Cook. Which explains why Town never went in for Billy the Fish, I wrote, immediately baffling any Town fan under the age of fifty. It's amazing, given the number of things that can hang in the air - planes, helicopters, kestrels, dragonflies - that the go to is 'a salmon.' From now on I'm going to describe Andy Cooks hanging in the air like a horse fly, purely for biological accuracy. 

You can tell it is going to take other Town players a while to adapt to this new reality. Normally when a Stripey goes for a header, his team-mates' reaction is to stand in a random place within ten yards and hope for a second ball. But Cooks flicks it on! Places it! Keeps the move going! It's a whole new paradigm!

On Saturday we visit Cheatenham (never forget) who have had an interesting  season so far. Complete pants to start with, culminating in a 7-1 defeat to the Stripeys (helped by two brainless professional footballers getting sent off) they went back to their ex, Steve Cotterill, who made them all better, before they became all pants again. I don't want to boast but you won't read a better summary of their season than that one. I can't be optimistic - I had my optimism glands removed shortly after birth - but I am hopeful.

And best of luck to our superb fans who will be making the long trip, and also to the two diarists who have to discuss the game between now and the weekend without pinching my world class Cheatenham season summary. Sorry boys and girls. Them's the breaks.

UTM