Cod Almighty | Diary

Stuff and nonsense

20 February 2019

Town news: a strong reserve side drew yesterday afternoon against a Wigan reserve side which may have been strong; I'm not sure. Certainly the club's Twitter feed was full of good chances – and three goals for Kristian Dennis, which can't be bad.

Other Town news: the sale of Michael Jolley's manager of the month trophy raised £1,650 for the Grimsby branch of the Fishermen's Mission. An excellent story all round, a sort of visit to the docks for the social media generation.

More Town news: the impressive content coming out of said social media at GTFC at the minute is impressive. GTTV is set to be relaunched soon and Thunderdiary implores you to watch the classic GTTV that the club has put up on YouTube. What a time that was to be alive.

And finally: John Fenty did his Q&A thing last night to slightly more fans than Cheltenham brought on Saturday. Beforehand there was a signing of a new agreement between the club and the Mariners Trust, called a memorandum of understanding. Apparently only five football clubs have got one of these in place, and it means that the trust's place on the board no longer needs to be secured by £30,000.

Fenty was coy on the stadium plans, seemimg to suggest that the council can't just give us a stadium and there have to be 'real' reasons for a development. He maintained his views on staying at BP for a while longer, using the £150k FA Cup windfall to spend on the floodlights. He also stated that although he's taking back his loans, he is prepared to put the money back if it was required.

More interesting was his view that Jolley's rolling contract was a sound idea which the gaffer is "comfortable" with. He also stated that he actually felt that the playing budget wasn't enough this season and that more would be needed next year.

This makes Jolley's achievements all the more amazing. No long-term contractual future and not enough money to spend – but the will and desire to build a squad worthy to compete in the league, both this season and into the future.