Cod Almighty | Diary

Somewhere in my heart the beat goes on

28 April 2022

Glass Half-Full Diary is back with a belated April debut. When I last wrote I said "let's win our next three and see where it leaves us". We nearly did! Only pesky Weymouth stopped us, but to recap, Chesterfield, Stockport, Kings Lynn, Torquay = 12 points to GTFC. Wahey! Altrincham, Woking, Yeovil, Southend, and now Torquay have all fallen away in the play-off race. Dagenham & Redbridge are most likely to gatecrash the play-off party now, particularly as neither Bromley nor Boreham Wood won one of their games in hand on Tuesday.

Besides Weymouth, the only thing wrong with April so far, result's wise, is that it is nearly over. Just the game at Barnet to go, and it looks like there'll be an impressive 1,200 Town fans there on Saturday. Let's hope they have something to cheer then we can decided to call the whole remainder of the season April, regardless of what the calendar says.

Therre is also of course John McAtee's shoulder injury. Twitter's usually excellent @OnThisGTFCDay can be held responsible for jinxing him by stating the Curse of the GTFC Calendar didn't apply this month because McAtee was fit on 1 April. Well then he was injured at King's Lynn on the 18th.

Incidentally, May's GTFC Calendar star is The Shop/LJL/Lenny, so York City beware. York went to Chester on Tuesday to play their game in hand in National League North's playoff race, and the Shop scored the only goal (despite some initial Twitter confusion as to the scorer's identity).  So York are also possibly play-off bound. Let's hope Lenny is fine in May and breaks the Curse, not least because this Diarist is cheering on York/Boston/whoever else northern* can go up from National League North. Admittedly that sounds daft, but I don't count Kidderminster, Brackley or Kettering as particularly northern and I am a little lazy about away travel due to family commitments. I do refuse to cheer Gateshead.

On Tuesday, I went to Cleethorpes Town's season decider at home to Stockton Town, and as you may know that game ended with a 1-2 defeat which ends the Owls' season and puts Stockton into a promotion-deciding play-off final instead. Ex-Mariners Josh Venney and Scott Vernon played, and the Owls also have Paul Walker (currently injured) plus Matt Bloomer on the coaching staff there. It was nice to spot current Mariners McAtee, Battersby, and Goundry in attendance, cheering on our neighbours. No, I didn't ask Mister McAtee about his shoulder.

UTM.