Cod Almighty | Diary
The Seven-Game Itch
30 January 2026
The Suez Crisis sees the beginning of the end of UK Prime Minister Anthony Eden and highlights Britain's lack of power on the global stage for the first time since the days of empire. A revolution in Hungary is brutally put down by the Soviet Union, one of the many causes of rising tensions in what is increasingly referred to as the Cold War. After increased decolonisation in Africa, Morocco breaks away from France and Ghana's independence is only a year away. Marilyn Monroe marries Arthur Miller. Rock and roll is accepted as popular mainstream entertainment and not just a counter-cultural phenomenon as Elvis Presley makes his debut on American television. Grimsby Town keep eight consecutive clean sheets in their Third Division North title-winning season.
The year is 1956 and the Mariners defence will almost certainly never have it so good again. Only the year 2026 can come close as in the slowly lightening days of January they make it to six consecutive clean sheets with a 1-0 win in the Tuesday night game away at Colchester. What a team. What a defence. What a time to be alive!
The already-legendary defence may or may not be bolstered by the wonderfully named Maldini Kacurri, Arsenal's Albanian centre-half. He's a 20-year-old big lad presumably coming to join the Artell youth revolution. The boss couldn't help but slip in a comment about how some who have moved on haven't had the kind of progress and success that they'd wanted. What was that? Did someone just ask how Konte is getting on? And what was that? Oh, yes, the Gilsenan's doing very well out on loan at Buxton.
Happily, our Manchester United slayer Gardner is still with us and running at speed again - Artell has even stuck his neck out to say it'll be either the Bristol Rovers or Notts County game where he makes his return. Aces. Sadly, DA also confirmed that Svanthorsson is seeing another specialist and that they haven't yet begun contract extension negotiations. Have we seen the last of the Icelandic winner of my inaugural Jack Lester award for A46 Diary's made-me-feel-most-special-this-season? Hope not.
The rest of the team is fit and raring to go. The fans are hoping for more minutes for Cook. Don't forget it's an early kick-off because the TV cameras will be there. Vernam will get a belated well-done clap after the announcement that the last home game against Barnet was his 150th appearance for the club. The TV cameras will be there, so let's show everyone how much we appreciate one of our current best. The Mariners Trust is going to unfurl a banner in the Pontoon, something that will no doubt delight a certain member of the CA team who always enjoyed being buried under that last dusty, stinky sheet. Let's hope it's more effective than the cards we held up way back in August. After all, the TV cameras will be there and the whole world's eyes will turn to our little corner of England's sweetest, greenest and fishiest lands.
The team who must not be named tomorrow. They come to Blundell Park to stand in the way of our seventh successive clean sheet. The anonymous franchisers are big, have again spent big, and will be the biggest test so far to the stoic stalwarts in the back four and Jackson Smith's heroic leaper-keepering. The hattrick-hero team-of-the-week, the artist formerly known as the Nosebleed, will have his work cut out to lead his defensive warriors against the undead forces of soulless football.
So, on paper, Town are the failing UK Prime Minister Anthony Eden, the plucky but ultimately doomed Hungarian rebels, the French grip on Morocco, Miller's mere five years with Marilyn and the crooners and big band swingers blown away by rock and roll. But the game's not played on paper and Anthony Eden gets a long lie down in the Bahamas, Hungary will eventually win its independence, western European powers continue to profit from their colonial dominance of Africa (not a moral argument, I know...), Miller will get five whole years with Marilyn and who doesn't love a crooner or a bebop boogie to a big band now and then, Daddio?
And that's it, no more words on the BFS. Keep the faith and enjoy that rarest of feelings for a Town fan: no surety of defeat and not just a hope we will win but a belief we will win.