Cod Almighty | Diary

Baby gone to sweat town

25 September 2025

So it’s Brentford, then. Probably not the glamorous, money-spinning tie we were dreaming of, but a tie all the same — and a League Cup fourth round tie at that. A winnable one? Well, why not.

Will Brentford be relishing their visit to Cleethorpes? Probably not. Play the kids and they risk the ignominy of crashing out to Matterface’s fishing village. Would they dare play anything closer to a full-strength side in a season when first division survival (and all the gold ingots that come with it) is on the line? Will they risk injuries to key players? I dare say we pose more of a headache to them than they do to us.

Much has changed since we last met, which was on a wild, wet and windy night in early March 2009. Standard fourth division fare — you know the sort: the Pontoon net billowed; the rain fell hard. The visitors won by scoring a solitary goal, and 3,001 spectators saw it. A young Jordan Rhodes and future Mariner Karleigh Osborne lined up for the Bees that night.

It was a defeat that saw the Mariners plumb new depths, at the time of course, sinking into the bottom two for the first time in a season when one team began on minus 30 points and two others on minus 17. We can laugh about it now because, when these two next meet, Blundell Park will be rocking and a rolling with a team that’s upwardly mobile, and we don’t have Fenty anymore. ANYMORE.

One of your West Yorkshire Diary’s earliest Grimsby Town memories was listening closely to the radio, or wireless as your grandparents called it, waiting for updates to filter through from our game at Griffin Park in the early part of the 1990-91 season. I’m sure some of you reading this were there that day — maybe a game you remember for a car breaking down, or someone getting stranded at a station, because the match itself, well… it ended 1-0 Brentford. If it did have any redeeming features, please get in touch and let us know about them.

The first time I ever saw Town take on Brentford was in the double Wembley season of 1997-98, when Dave Smith crashed in a thunderbolt on debut and we ran out 4-0 victors. We’d really hit our straps at that point, with Buckley-ball in full flow — even on a churned-up pitch. Brentford had no answers that day; they couldn’t live with us. I took pity on them.

Now they visit as a Premier League outfit, having risen through the ranks with the sort of pluck and fortitude that served Brighton so well. I’m happy for them. They got their shiny new community stadium, as did Brighton, and you get the impression (or at least you’d hope) that, due to their relatively quick rise, their fanbase still holds a measure of humility. Like Brighton's.

One of the standout features of a Grimsby Brentford tie is the lack of draws. This will be our 60th meeting, and of the previous 59 the spoils have only been shared four times. The last draw came on April Fool’s Day 1961 when both defences shut up shop. Just the 35 matches played since, with the Mariners edging it 18-17, like a classic Snooker World Championship final at the Crucible.

But football isn’t the best of 35. There’s a 36th frame heading our way and, rather fittingly, it cannot end in a draw. Well, it can, but you know what I mean. These two sides have never played out a 1-1 draw, you know.

Oh, and er, we have some league games between now and then, starting with table propper-uppers Cheltenham Town. They're one of those teams I don't really like but have forgotten why. So, a return to winning ways would be most welcome, especially against them. UTM!