Cod Almighty | Diary

Juicy

26 February 2026

Welcome to your short but not necessarily sweet West Yorkshire Diary today because I’m slumped in a bed of self-pity, sad that my sinuses are stickier than Blundell Park’s goalmouths and a nose leakier than Town’s defence pre-Jackson Smith. It doesn’t bode well for interesting Mariners-based prose. This is basically like a nasty palette cleanser before a tastier and less ill diarist than me fills your Friday with some firmer and more noroushing substance.

I’ve basically got a very juicy head right now, and it’s not a pretty sight (nor sound). The common cold always rids me to bed, yet the child who my son says urinated onto the tip of his finger at school the other day and then licked it is walking around a picture of health. Life isn’t fair. If it was, Town would be top of the league and about to register their biggest ever win at Meadow Lane.

I’d settle for a win by any sort of margin on Saturday, really. Is that too much to ask? I’m losing sense of what’s fair to demand of the footballing gods in a season where we’ve already beaten Man Utd, made the fourth round of both major cup competitions, been awarded eight penalties and had eight opposition players sent off. Yet I still feel we’re in debt somehow and owed something — particularly against Notts County. Yes, yes, I remember the time we scored a late fifth goal to snatch an incredible draw at Blundell Park a few years back, and the time we absolutely shafted them twice in one play-off match by scoring even later goals to destroy their season while extending ours (and ultimately making it a successful one). But still.

Were you there in the autumn of 1992 when David Ellery flashed his cards almost exclusively at Town players? Maybe you saw The Frenchman prance and the manager seethe in the spring of 2005? Not since the days of Wayne Henderson, Joe Widdowson and Nick Hegarty have the Mariners triumphed at County as a Football League club. We’re definitely owed or due a win there, and I won’t feel the slightest pang of guilt or awkwardness if the referee awards us a penalty and sends off one of their players when they actually made a decent challenge, and we win because of it.

Maybe I’d feel more compassionate or sporting if I wasn’t so full of snot, but then again they did sign Lee Hughes in 2009, so yes, the balance needs redressing. UTM!