Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Monday 15 May 2006

15 May 2006

Tomorrow evening sees Town's biggest game since Mr Russell Slade took the reins at Blundell Park two summers ago - and nobody seems to have told the Great Grimsby Public. As of last night around 1,300 tickets were still available for the second leg of the Mariners' play-off semi-final against Lincoln, reports the club's official website in disbelief, including a whopping 864 among the dentists of the Main Stand ("Mostly good views", adds the OS with a market trader's touch of desperation). After the significant part played by travelling Mariners in Saturday's first-leg victory at Sincil Bank, the Diary is hopeful that the people of North East Lincs will get the message in time - though it may be that the five-minute fans who queued all night for Newcastle tickets are yet to grasp the play-off system and are assuming that the Imps fixture is a semi-final in the Lincolnshire Senior Cup.

Underpaid player of the season Rob 'The Stick' Jones, who sat out Saturday while his wife was in labour, could return to duty for Tuesday's underspectated second leg. This is presumably the message of hope to be taken from a Mariners World interview with Jones which the Diary can't get to play, and the only other thing I can find about it is an item on Teamtalk in which Mr Russ optimistically deploys the future rather than the conditional tense in explaining that "to have him back will be wonderful" (my italics). "There were a few complications and delays with the birth," adds Sladey, which is only to be expected with a six-foot-seven baby.

Remaining on the subject of the play-offs, as I suppose we ought to really, Gillingham chairman Paul Scally appears to know something we don't. Speaking of his side's prospects in next year's third division, the charming and sensitive Gills supremo anticipates an exciting time of it "with Millwall, Crewe and Brighton coming down and Carlisle and Grimsby and Northampton coming up". You may be tempted, at this point, to conclude that cuddly Paul simply hasn't been paying attention, but this is the man who had to be fined £10,000 by the Football League for correctly 'predicting' that Gillingham would lose their 1999 play-off final against Manchester City. Book your Cardiff hotel rooms now, people.

If Scally's mysterious powers of foresight prove effective again then he will have had statistics on his side as well. Phil Watson has emailed Cod Almighty to ask: "Do you think you could hurl some raw meat in the direction of CA's tame statistician and get him to tell us how often the team finishing fourth goes up through the play-offs? Is it more or less than the 1 in 4 chance predicted by the 'it's all a bleedin' lottery innit' school? Enquiring but lazy minds want to know." The answer is no. Not "no, it isn't more or less than a 1 in 4 chance", but "no, CA's tame statistician, known to close friends as Andy Holt, won't do it". Why? Because the Guardian website did it the other week, and their answer looks very nice for the Mariners. In the 17 sets of fourth division play-offs to have taken place so far, the highest-placed side has won on 12 occasions. Stop me if this is getting too positive.

Finally today, both Mark Stilton and Mark Wilson have emailed the Diary to draw attention to a masterclass in shockingly inaccurate reporting from the BBC, which claims that "Lincoln defender Gary Cohen made a crucial deflection to prevent Andy Parkinson from doubling Grimsby's advantage" and attributes Curtis Woodhouse's last-minute clearance off the line to Tom Newey. Perhaps the reporter took Rocky at his word when he said he was quitting after the Northampton match.