Cod Almighty | Diary

The seasoned eye

18 February 2026

The final third. The place where it counts and the time when it counts. 30 league games gone, 16 to play, and all to play for. The season starts here.

Except its balderdash. Do we dismiss Man United, Harry Pell getting sent off before our very eyes, putting seven goals on Cheltenham because they didn't happen at the "business end" of the campaign? I wish we could dismiss Tranmere and that grotesque apology for a human being celebrating an injury-time winner by trying to wind up the Pontoon.

Its partly because of my seat in the Main Stand, but nowadays Newbegin Diary's eyes jump to where my brain expects the ball to go when its close to the Osmond end goal. Don't call me as a witness for how Wolves kept out our two late chances on Sunday. Allowing for that, my most reliable pleasure nowadays is watching George MacEachran facing the wrong way and with two men tight to him somehow contriving an opening. That's always in the middle third, of course. Don't suppose it really counts at all.

So get along to Blundell Park tonight (pitch willing). It may be blood and thunder, or thud and blunder, or something in between. Undoubtedly you will start to applaud a sublime turn only to find the player depositing his pass five yards behind its target. Undoubtedly you will groan when someone takes the wrong option before you realise your viewpoint has deceived you and we are closing in on goal. It will go wrong. It will go right. But it will be far more than the sum of our league position in May.