Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Monday 29 May 2006

29 May 2006

As Monday dawns clear and bright over Leicestershire I was fully expecting to be waking to a new era in the history of Grimsby Town. However, as the mists of alcohol-fuelled sleep clear, I find I am hurting. As I struggle to express this in words I have turned to a dictionary for help.

pain - bodily or mental suffering
anguish - great mental or physical pain
depression - low spirits, dejection, despondency
futile - useless
hurt - feel pain or distress

As I looked to define my feelings I suddenly found other words that may be of use to us all.

faith - trust or belief without proof future - a time to come hope - expectation of something desired

At this moment the pain in great, the hurting could go on for months but the future starts today and our faith is undimmed.

It's not often the Diary begins with an email, but today the words of Keith Falla, which appear above, have a consoling resonance about them. Keith is right. Breathe deeply and take stock, reader; retain your pragmatism and stoutness of mind; for as our Grimbarian forebears braced against the icy Arctic gales that lashed their trawlers in the wild North Sea, so we Mariners must be stoical in the face of adversity, rising each day to meet the cruel storms of circumstance and fate with calm resolve. It must be said, though - Town were absolutely crap yesterday, weren't they?

The one thing worse than finding a worm in your apple is, of course, finding half a worm, and perhaps the only experience more painful than abject failure is reading rubbish reports about your abject failure the next day. Mike Anstead of the Guardian appears to have forgotten that the play-offs happen every year in reporting: "Clubs of this size rarely have the opportunity to play at such a prestigious venue", while the Times' Tom Dart has somehow convinced himself to award five out of ten to Andy Parkinson - arguably Town's only outfield player who bothered turning up yesterday - and eight out of ten to shitehawk referee Paul Taylor. A better reflection of the game, remarkably, is to be found in right-wing scumsheet the Sun, despite its reference to Parky being denied "a blatant penalty" and setting the word 'cross' in bold upper case for no reason at all - unless it's a subtle way of conveying the way Town supporters felt after the match.

So the season having ended at last, and Town having completely bottled it like at Macclesfield, we're more or less assuming that the 2006-07 campaign will begin with at least Steve Mildenhall, Jones the Stick and Luton's Michael Reddy having moved along to pastures less fishy. The club's stock of six-foot-seven defenders will be halved this summer if any or all of the Stick's rumoured transfers to Wolves, Crewe, Doncaster, Hibernian should come to fruition, while the expected south-westerly departures of Mildew and the Hatters forward are all too cruelly summarised in today's Bristol Evening Post, which rubs its paper hands in glee at the increased likelihood of Reddy going to Ashton Gate and Town's brilliant and adored goalkeeper joining Bristol Rovers in the wake of the Mariners' shocking failure in Cardiff. What about Sladey, then? Is he still going to sign that new contract or will the five or six new players promised by Positive John be brought in by Hoof Alexander?

Much as the Diary admires the Grimsby Telegraph's 'blank' front page today - a bold editorial decision signifying the emotions of several Grimbarians at this time - one of the things I enjoy most about Guest Diary's, er, guest diaries on Fridays is the sense of perspective he brings to bear on the painful but hardly life-threatening experience of supporting Grimsby Town. In the email GD has sent about Cardiff he does likewise. "I saw at least three Town players mum-waving as they came out of the tunnel," he writes. "And I'm glad they did - even if it caused us to lose the game. We can get promoted another season, but you've only got one mum." There you go, eh? "By the way," he adds, "I was much cheered to read trawler's version of 'Your Song' on the CA Shoutbox. A very worthy effort and much better than the mawkish original." Indeed, and speaking of the Shoutbox, 'haddocksrock' has remarked that the Millennium Stadium seemed to have only one ball. This may have been the same number as Hitler, but it is also one more than most of Town's players could boast yesterday.