Cod Almighty | Diary
Get set for the glory... in 2034
21 March 2017
Wicklow Diary writes: Better news from the seedy world of football admin. Leyton Orient have survived. For now at any rate. Rather worryingly, their lizard overlord has told the court that the cheque is in the post, but the outcome gives Orient a fighting chance of starting their inevitable rebuild in the Conference instead of the Essex league. Continued good luck to them.
Thought our teetering stagger towards the play-offs had ended passed out in the gutter? Think again. Contracts or something will have us going great guns, Marcus has told the Telegraph, presumably after John Fenty reminded him that the season ticket renewal packs haven't gone out yet. Mid-table doesn't get the blood pumping round these parts. Football fans support a winning team. Not just Town fans, to be fair – all fans. Last year was double the fun, winners with a cause. We all know that Grimsby Town are not a non-League club and we put our shoulder to the wheel. Now what?
Remember the 1990s when football was all kits with floppy collars worn by even floppier hair? We've had few uneventful seasons since then. You could get upset with perceived mid-table tripe but did so in a bubble that only extended to your elbow at the bar. Maybe if feeling really flushed after another boring draw with Birmingham, you'd write a letter to the Telegraph. Town are rubbish. The numbers agreed with this view. Seasons wound down and the attendances did too, with crowds of less than four thousand rocking up to watch second-tier football.
This post-success cycle of whittling down to a hardcore number seems to have started again. Season ticket sales were boosted by efforts from the trust and the momentum of promotion. When the season ticket renewals do go out, it won't just be the bloke down the pub telling you not to bother. There are virtual voices everywhere, some of them with surprisingly entrenched negative views about the manager. Surprising because he's only been in the job a few months and was unanimously considered to be a great choice when appointed.
I've questioned MB's approach myself. Mate, why won't you just play 4-4-2? Our squad is assembled from third, fourth, fifth and sixth division players. It is a dream, in equal parts fantasy and futility, to think you can flick a switch each game and play a formation to suit. Who are we countering anyway? This is the fourth division: we're not trying to keep Messi out while picking Baresi's pocket. Most of the teams are a shambles. How else could Stevenage be tearing up the place? Work with what you've got in a familiar system that gives the players one less thing to think about.
CA ace match reporter Tony Butcher summed it up nicely on Radio Humberside last week: these modern managers need to forget trying to play chess with each other and just play 4-4-2. A better 4-4-2 than everybody else.
So that's my opinion. It is of course subject to change and (when I'm calm) I'm not going to call MB an idiot if he doesn't listen. A manager's decisions might drive us mad but that doesn't mean he can't learn and get the next one right.
Is it all about expectations? Do we need to remind ourselves what it means to be a GTFC fan? The football part of it, anyway. Town are your partner for life, 'til death do you part (remember the song 'Grimsby Til I Die', even though I've always worried what comes after that). Grumbling about a lack of entertainment? You want silky skills? Only on birthdays or anniversaries if you're lucky. Watch the Premier or Champions League porn for the cheap thrill of some fit and tanned foreign sort if you want the kinky stuff like passing and tekkers all the time. Just don't forget where your home is.
One perfect moment. One that you'll remember in vivid detail forever. The one you recall from memory when you close your eyes for a moment. Nathan's goal, but our moment
You know those pension ads that warn how past performance should not be taken as an indicator of future results? Well, in Town's case past performance should be used as an indicator. We will move up the league. Then we will get relegated. Maybe not in that order. And repeat. This is our lot.
The epic glory witnessed by 19,276 in Blundell Park in May 1980? I had that dissolved in an instant by the simple clipped delivery of the BBC World Service. Grimsby 2 Hull 2, Grimsby are relegated, moving to the next result without a pause. Pick that one out when you're able to breathe again.
We can aspire to change but don't be surprised when the sucker punch comes around again. At the moment it's 16-14 to the relegations, or 18-14 if you include using our get out of jail card and successfully applying for re-election.
And there is little logic to determine whether we fail or succeed. If you blame a bunch of washed-out pros on their way down the league for relegation in 2010, how do you explain the achievements of has-been/nearly men like Childs, Rees, Gilbert, Mendonca, Woods, Futcher, Donovan, Burnett and the rest?
We are Town. Expect to take 4,000 fans to a fourth division game and concede the decisive goal before the first song has finished. Expect to lose 5-0 to a side that hasn't won or scored in three months. Expect failure. Expect failure again. Still with us? Expect to lose a record goalscorer because the club doesn't fancy handing out multi-year contracts. As they simultaneously hand out a three-year deal to an untried greyhound from the sixth tier.
If winning games of football every week with additional marks for presentation is all you're in this for, Town are the wrong choice. It's not all bad though. Accept that every disappointment is just another step to a rare moment like 1980, 1998 or 2016. One perfect moment. One that you'll remember in vivid detail forever. Not from the dozens of YouTube videos from fans all round the stadium: the one you recall from memory when you close your eyes for a moment. Nathan's goal, but our moment.
The sunshine, the deep green of the turf, the black and white. The unbearable, gut-wrenching wait for the inevitable equaliser that you knew was in the script. Not this time. The blast hitting the despairing leg. The ball ricocheting with such backspin that it checked to a halt like a well-struck Ronnie O'Sullivan pot. Your shot, Nathan. The ball hitting the net. The rush. The noise.
Dreaming about Wembley is the answer to almost every difficult problem I face each day. Unfortunately not all of them. This is where the club needs to step up. Rather than send season ticket renewals out with a lead balloon attached, can we follow the example set by Bradford City? Could Omar's transfer fee give us some wriggle room on setting the prices?
If so, I hope we aren't relying on a staying-up bonus from the deal. Wigan look doomed. Omar's popularity has declined after his two-goal full debut too. His place of birth was updated on Wikipedia by a Wigan wag this week to be 'offside'. Football fans, eh. Why do we take everything do seriously?