Cod Almighty | Diary

Oh Mr Cowley! We beat you of course!

28 January 2026

Jurassic Park! Cashback! Paint my knees green and call me Gladys! I didn't watch the King's Speech on Christmas Day, but whatever he said seems to have inspired the Town defence in ways only an outdated and pointless monarch possibly could. Let's face it, we're scoring the amount of goals we normally do, but at the other end things are going Spiceworld.

If you'd told me on the 20th December that Bromley's second goal would be the last league goal we would concede until at least the 30th January, I would have thought you were stark raving bonkers. Then I would have become suspicious of your apparent sorcery, had you reported to the authorities and burnt as a witch. Burn the witch! Burn the witch! Sorry, got caught up in the hysteria there. Obviously a lot of credit goes to our new lovely shiny goalkeeper Jack Smithson, who has been a revelation in that he stops the ball going into the net, which is a whole new experience for a lot of younger Town fans.

We needed him last night as our Totem, Green Kieran, finally got fed up of Colchester, referees and other blights on the game and went stark raving bonkers (second time in one diary) and started pulling, shouting, creating public disturbances, indulging in behaviour likely to cause a ruckus and was sent back to the stands in disgrace. Bad Greeny! What followed though was a rearguard action of epic porportions involving tremendous bravery and commitment from the Wall of Stripes. 

It also involved timewasting. Now, I hate timewasting, even when we do it. I don't want to see Town teams going down the old Cheltenham path of making the referee's job as hard as possible, bending rules until they wobble, winding up opponents and trying to get them sent off, and general shithousery, snidery and let's be honest, cheating. To put it in black and white terms, fittingly, I want to support the goodies and not the baddies.

But...but...it's against Colchester. I quote from my own diary last October:

"I think, after years and years and years of watching football, that some teams are just irritating beyond belief. Unpleasant, snidey, cynical, and just plain nasty. It's not that they are ill-disciplined - indeed quite the opposite - they are superbly drilled at playing the ref and winding up the opposition. Their tactic is disruption, and it is clear that every foul has been thought through and every feigned injury has its purpose. Non-league has plenty of them. You can almost see the point of such anti-football if you're Kings Lynn and your goalkeeper is a landlord called Darren, playing teams with 100 times your budget and tradition. Try and give yourself an advantage in other ways. Try and sneak a result through the back door. But for old league teams, nah. It's just horrible.

For a while Cheltenham were the prime example of a team whose main tactic was to avoid football at all costs but, unsurprisingly, Colchester have now taken over the tarnished crown. I remember the Cowley Bros going mad on the touchline at Lincoln because one of our players had given something back after being treated as a punching bag all afternoon, and this has been their/his modus operandi before and since. Wherever a Cowley is found, there will be a big bulging bag of cynicism and shithousery that could potentially put a spectator off the game for life. I've nothing against their fans, and fans will always celebrate a victory and why shouldn't they? But if Town ever start playing like Colchester, I'm flouncing off."

So, did the nature of our opponents justify what we did? Since the ref played 12 minutes of injury time, I'm going to say...yes. No. I'm not sure. Play the game, Town. We can win without this nonsense. 

Danny Cowley is always classy in his post match interviews, though. Bless him for that. Not all managers manage this.

Let's not get bogged down in moral debates though. It's been a grim, rainy, dark January and the black and white heroes have helped us through it like Jesus with a torch, or something. Proud of all our players. What a bunch. To a man. 

Saturday we have another team to beat, and I'm going to use their name even though it is banned at Cod Almighty Towers. (expletive deleted)

He said it! He said it! Burn the witch! 

Oh god, here we go again.

UTM