Cod Almighty | Diary

Cowering, timorous beasties no more

25 February 2021

Trentside Diary writes: Who would have thought it? Forest Green Rovers doing us no favours at all. Probably just about everyone who follows Grimsby Town.

It was disappointing but let's just focus on Town. We were briefly off the bottom, but that does not account for the optimism we felt on Tuesday night. The mood came from the win: our first win this year; our first win under Hurst II; our first win since Holloway slithered away; our first win since the takeover was announced. It wasn't pretty but you probably heard my scream in Grimsby when we scored. I can’t say "cheer" because it was far too strangled hysteria for that. My poor nervous dog hasn't recovered yet. Forget Pavlov, she will cower every time she hears John Tondeur in future. Sorry John, nothing personal: all my fault.

Hurst inherited a battered, broken, cobbled together collection of people who aspire to kick a football for a living. Think back to the horror show around Christmas. He's bought wisely and he's working them hard. He's carefully crafting a team and building their confidence. Almost immediately we started to look better and we've been hanging on for the results to follow. We've had our first win and that will give the team a boost. What pleased me was that we didn't let our heads drop when Crawley equalised. If we can hang on to that attitude then there's loads to play for yet.

We've been talking about two out of three going down but I believe there are far more in the mix. We have one, two or three games in hand on most of the teams above us. Stevenage in 20th on 34 points are 10 ahead of us but we have 3 games in hand. Colchester are also on 34 points but we have 2 games in hand. I would prefer to have points for those games obviously but we have been building and gradually improving in the seven games since Hurst’s return. We lost a couple of games where we played well enough to get something, but as confidence grows and our heads stay in the game picking up points should improve. Colchester United and Mansfield Town are both in a worse run than us. We are still to play Colchester, Barrow, Mansfield (definite six-pointers) and given how strange this season is, we could pick up points anywhere. So much to play for and we’re heading in the right direction, if not yet up the table. 

Many have been saying it since Hurst came back: we just need a couple of wins and this will be a whole different team. We could be on the way now. Keep the faith!

UTM! Fenty Out!