Cod Almighty | Diary

Hopes and Prayers

5 March 2025

It's Ash Wednesday and VFTF diary is back shining a light on the mighty Mariners after last night's 1-1 draw against Tranmere Rovers. Oh yeah, I may be a numbskull sometimes, but as a Lisle Marsden C of E old boy I know the real meaning of today.

After the joy of my Shrove Tuesday (pancake day, bin day, sunshine and the chance to watch Town under the lights) comes the start of Lent. Pope Francis' message for Lent 2025 has as its theme, "Let us journey together in hope". A fitting message to the Mariners faithful as results elsewhere make our single point gained feel less like two points dropped. We now sit one place and two points outside of the playoffs with a game in hand on seventh placed Crewe Alexandra.

For Christians who today have started to observe Lent (and for Muslims who have recently started observing Ramadan) the next few weeks may include periods of self-denial and self-examination. The 40 days of Lent takes us all the way up to Easter weekend at which point we will only have four games remaining of the season. Hopefully, the club's staff and players can journey together in hope, whilst also examining and reflecting on what could be done better to ensure a fittingly joyful Easter Weekend and end of season run in.

So, what did we learn from last night? Firstly, we need to sort the pitch out or change our style of football for home games. The two are not currently compatible. As for what happened on the grass, mud and puddles - it certainly wasn't a celestial performance. However, our unbeaten run continues, and we managed to stop two ex-Mariners scoring against us, which was nice. Artell chose to make a number of changes, and some were more successful than others.

For Lent my act of self-denial will be to try my hardest to give up the cathartic (but ultimately pointless) habit of slagging off our own players. Therefore, I won't be discussing our central midfield being overrun by some cloggers destined for relegation, Luker’s finishing, Barrington's hesitancy (and socks) or Doug Tharme's inability to find our own players with his long throw-ins. Nope, that was the old me. Now, I like to focus on the positives which, for me, were Danny Rose's confident penalty and another encouraging performance from Svanthorsson who is getting better and better.

Ahead of last night's game I had a google of that fateful day at Prenton Park in 2004 when Tranmere's 2-1 victory relegated us to the lowly depths of the fourth division. I remember thinking on the depressing journey back to Grimsby that at least we'd sunk so low that we would win more often and would be looking at promotion permutations rather than relegation places. Now, over 20 years later with only a single dalliance with promotion from the lowest echelon of the football league in-between, we are finally doing so. In Tony Butcher's excellent report from that horrible day on the Wirral he finished with a proclamation of defiance and hope "Still, we'll be back. Somewhere, someday, somehow." This season could, God willing, be the year his prophecy is fulfilled.