Cod Almighty | Diary

Yes sir, I can boogie – I just don't particularly feel like it just now

27 August 2019

If you don't usually sit in the Main Stand, or you haven't for ages, I recommend you try it sometime. There are insights to be had from the area just behind the dugouts which are unavailable anywhere else in the ground.

Your original/regular Diary watched the Port Vale game from the oldest section of Blundell Park and, like everyone else in the home stands, I enjoyed it very much. Had I taken my usual place in the Pontoon, though, I wouldn't have spotted the large stack of takeaway pizzas being carried towards the changing room at full time.

Nor would I have seen Town's assistant manager Anthony Limbrick copping a sneaky peak at Port Vale's tactics sheet thingy when they were bringing on Mark Cullen to replace Ryan Lloyd, which he responded to immediately by getting Michael Jolley to sub on Harry Clifton for Matt Green. (The manager had to give a big cuddle to poor Greeny, who was playing a blinder and had only just scored Town's third goal, presumably reassuring him that it was tactical rather than personal.)

Tonight the Mariners go up against Macclesfield in the League Cup, for the prize of a third-round tie against Southampton's youth team or something, probably. A couple of hours ago on Twitter someone pointed out that Luke Waterfall will be cup-tied, so with Harry Davis having knackered his shoulder on Saturday and Ludvig Öhman possibly still out through the concussion protocol, everyone's wondering who'll partner Little Mattie Pollock at centre-half. They're wondering for a sec and then they're saying "yeah, dunno, Hendrie or Hewitt probably".

That reminds me, I liked Hewitt's floppy hair as well. Also I still think Concussion Protocol should be the name of a straight-edge hardcore punk trio from Dresden, but perhaps that's just me.

I'm struggling to keep up with the loaned-out players (I'm struggling a bit generally, if truth be told – it's 17 years since I started writing the diary and the Fishy would probably agree that my knees have gone) but I did spot at the weekend that Brandon Buckley scored for Cleethorpes Town at some point. So well done there. To Brandon, I mean, not to me, but if there's any personal validation going then I'll take it.

Several other people have spotted that a lad called Harvey Drinkell scored for the under-18s in their comfortable cup win over Chesterfield on Saturday, and yes, when you've just been talking about Brandon Buckley there is quite an obvious question there. My first thought was, no, he can't be, because Kevin settled in Scotland, and there are loads of Drinkells around Grimsby. Then I looked at Harvey's picture and he's got exactly the same shaped face.

So there's another one for the list. In fact that list could probably turn into a GTFC 'sons of illustrious dads' XI now, couldn't it? Tweet us or feedback form us if you can form a whole team of 'em, or indeed if you can think of a snappy but less awful way to turn 'feedback form' into a verb.