Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Thursday 22 April 2010
22 April 2010
Armchair Diary writes: I can't tell you how much of a relief it is to have the proper dot com domain back, dear reader. I could have changed my CA bookmarks to use the other domain instead but it somehow felt wrong, like I would be cheating on the real site and as such I refused. OK, this meant every time I used these bookmarks I had to manually edit the URL to point to the working version of the site but maybe life as Grimsby Town fan has made me feel as though I have to suffer in some way on a daily basis.
The senior playing squad may include a bunch of loanees and players on short-term contracts but some of the players have signed on with the club for a couple of years, and mostly they did so knowing that relegation was a very realistic prospect. But still they signed on the dotted line and committed to Town. They know that being relegated from the Football League is not exactly a joyous occasion. Some of them may even fear for their futures at the club, either because their wages may be deemed excessive for the Conference or because the club could potentially cash in on them albeit for modest transfer fees. In short these are potentially uncertain times for many people associated with the club.
Should it be all doom and gloom though? According to many of the comments on the Telewag story about the club's awards night on May 4 it should indeed be that dark with numerous calls to cancel the ceremony because the club has underperformed this season. Let me get this straight - the awards night should be cancelled as there can be no players worthy of a gong as we have lost our League status? There's no player of the year, no single player that stands out from the rest, is that right? If any of the players were any good we wouldn't have been relegated - of course, silly me. I was brought up on Buckley-era Town, the whole team working together playing excellent pass-and-move football. The team had no star, we were never a one-man team yet every year one of the players was honoured with the player of the year award. Why should this season be any different? Some of the players that have been brought in have done a good job and without them we would have been relegated long ago. Players who have been here for years, like Straight Peter Bore, have come on in leaps and bounds and had a good season. What good does it do the players to be told the annual awards ceremony has been cancelled? It tells them they are all shit and they might as well not have bothered. OK, for some that may be true but not for all of them. Relegation hurts the players too. We need those that remain at the club next season to be professional, to knuckle down and to help drive the club forward again and for that they need confidence, not the kick in the bollocks that comes from scrapping the awards ceremony.
Anyone else think that this weekend's game between Darlington and Town is a strange one to turn into a ladies' day? In fact does anyone know what "sumptious" means? And as both teams will be playing non-League football next season, should the post-match presentations be cancelled?
The reserves dished out a 6-2 beating of Scunny yesterday as their season nears its end. There's just those rearranged games against Leeds (next Tuesday afternoon) and Newcastle (next Thursday night) to go now and then that's it for a while following Fentycon's announcement that the reserves probably won't compete in their league next season and will just play ad-hoc friendlies instead. The goals came courtesy of Adrian Forbes and Nick Hegarty who each scored a couple with Adam Proudlock and youth-teamer Nathan Dixon also getting on the scoresheet.
Finally, a plea for sanity and sensible behaviour comes from Emma Blackbourn, chair of the Grimsby Town Supporters' Trust. She asks fans not to behave like dickheads and invade the pitch once relegation is confirmed. Unfortunately I fear these words will fall on deaf ears as the childish element of the Mariners support will surely want to get on the pitch before running around aimlessly for a bit having realised that they no longer know what to do. A stroll towards the opposing fans will follow, accompanied by some hand gestures before the police and stewards over-react in getting them all off the pitch. It's been done so many times before and each time it's an embarrassment. A couple of hundred teenagers thinking they're hard by running on to the pitch, verbally abusing opposing fans, including families, before getting bored and wandering off to hang around McDonalds car park is pretty pathetic. If I was in charge of stewarding at the ground when it happens I think I would go have a cup of tea and a biscuit as it will all have blown over by the time I'd eaten those last few crumbs. I'm not sure Cod Almighty's audience and the type of 'fan' who invades the pitch intersect greatly on any Venn diagram but to anyone who does fall in that category, do us all a favour and stay off the grass please. Why not make your feelings known in a much more effective way by joining a Facebook group or something instead? At least then you can act like a complete wazzock without several thousand real supporters having to witness it. Ta.