Cod Almighty | Diary
Gaffer, I'm concerned
16 July 2019
"Great!" said Baby Diary last night at the kitchen table, when I shared the news that a deal may be close for a new stadium on Grimsby docks. "I'll never have to use that horrible toilet at Blundell Park ever again!"
Heritage is subjective, of course. One person's historic floodlight towers, a defining feature of an emotionally charged location, might be the next person's bleakly functional structure to facilitate electrical illumination. And there's no rulebook on whose say is definitive. Blundell Park, like all places, resonates in different ways to different people. But every discussion between Cod Almighty team members on the way to a match in the last 10 or 15 years has concluded that if we have to leave BP, then any new stadium should clearly be around the docks or Freeman Street. Even the discussions that began on a different subject entirely, like Doctor Who, chips, or Adam Proudlock.
It's not people like us, though, whose thoughts actually end up influencing what happens. It's those men who are about ten years older than us and have never completed a Guardian cryptic crossword or heard a Saint Etienne album, but wear a shirt and tie every day and despite their sometimes quite clear intellectual limitations are somehow allowed to play a defining role in shaping the physical, cultural and economic landscapes that direct our daily lives. So it's nice that they've finally caught up with us.
At this point your original/regular Diary will resist the temptation to look sideways at John Fenty while raising an eyebrow, saying "really?", and holding up a copy of the 2016 survey commissioned by GTFC which ruled out the docks and Freeman Street in favour of Peaks Parkway. But yeah, since you ask, the fatal flaws in its methodology were readily apparent right from the start.
Astonishing and unprecedented scenes at the cricket, meanwhile, I'm sure you'll all agree. As the Grimsby Telewag's James Findlater pointed out last night, it's not every day you see Dave Moore wearing long trousers.
New players? There will be some – but none of the recent trial defenders. Michael Jolley has told the football community of North East Lincolnshire, the wider world and the whole damn universe that Charlie Fox, Alex Penny and the other lads who turned out in Town's three pre-season kickabouts so far have been ushered through the exit door with not so much of a glimpse at a shiny silver envelope marked 'contract'. It's fair but harsh to say this will probably spell R-E-L-I-E-F, relief, to those hardy souls who watched any of those friendlies.
However, the manager appears to be close to completing a loan signing, who is believed by some to be Joe Grayson again, the young Blackburn defender who came in for a bit last season only to be omitted from the matchday 16 as often as he was included. Cruel circumstance robbed me of the chance to spectate on Town's scintillating climax to the 2018-19 season, so I'm pretty sure I never saw Grayson play. Did you? Was he much cop?
In ticket news today, tickets are usually rectangular and made of paper and if you hand one over at a turnstile you will be admitted to the event. Starting next Monday you can buy tickets for a football match between Morecambe and Grimsby Town which is happening in early August. And if you like tickets or football events so much want that you want to buy a lot of tickets all at once, Grimsby Town have extended the early bird discount period for season tickets, presumably because not enough worms have been caught, or something. There aren't any tickets for today's friendly against King$ton Communication$ FC, because it's not open to the public. And that's all the ticket news.
Last up today, spare a moment or two to raise your lunchtime cup of tea in a toast to Ted Riley, a Town fan since 1934, who has died at the age of 94. Veterans of the Mariners' top-flight 1930s heyday must be few in number now. Here's to Ted, and here's to a Grimsby Town Football Club flourishing once more, in a fitting home, come the days when Baby Diary gets to reminisce about those rubbish toilets they used to have back in the 2010s. See yers.