Cod Almighty | Diary

Don't be a serial killer

8 May 2014

Grimsby Town Football Club have announced that they are not going to sack their manager. Why is this non-event deemed newsworthy? Surely this is the manager who has just taken them to two consecutive fourth-place finishes in a 24-team league? Isn't announcing that you're not going to sack him somewhat akin to, say, the mayor of New York City confirming that they have no imminent plans to tear down the Statue of Liberty? Or your neighbour popping round to let you know that they won't be hopping backwards down the road in a kimono whistling the theme tune from Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em?

Ah yes, but this is Grimsby Town Football Club. Run by notorious manager sackers who back the boss one day and give him his P45 the next. Supported by a large number of shouty amnesiacs who forget that sacking a manager failed to improve the club's fortunes the last 3,215 times it was tried.

Consider this: there was only one occasion in living memory when the notorious manager sackers didn't respond to the shouty amnesiacs, and instead gave Russell Slade a second year in charge, despite loud calls for his removal in mid-2005. And what came after that? The only season that saw an upward blip in Town's decline during the 2002–12 Decade of Despair. The closest we've come since 1998 to any promotion at all.

Sacking managers, then, tends to make things worse. Not sacking a manager – the one time we tried it – seemed to make things better. Call me naive, but if the club decides to give not sacking a manager another try, I'll go with that this time.

What's that? You're not calling me naive? You've got something else to say? Let's hear it then.

Ah, so, then, original/regular Diary, if you're not calling for Paul Hurst to get the sack, that must mean you're happy with Town being in the Conference for five years, yes? That must mean you've really enjoyed watching the rubbish, timid football Hurst's teams have been playing for the best part of a year, right?

Don't be so bloody stupid.

Not wanting the manager sacked doesn't mean you're happy with everything. This is the illogic of a dur-brain. It just means you're not a shouty amnesiac. It just means you realise that there might be different approaches to improving the stuff you're not happy with. Approaches other than sacking the manager every three minutes. Because, as we have seen many times now, that approach doesn't actually work, does it?

Hurst is in. If we're in the same place a year from now, we'll talk again. Until then, move on. Accept that the manager remains. Continue to support him and our team. The end.