Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Monday 23 October 2006

23 October 2006

Is it just me or is everything shit when the regular Diary is on holiday? I guess we'll find out this Saturday, when if Town lose comfortably at Peterborough we'll know that everything is shit when the regular Diary isn't on holiday as well.

Anyway, here I am again to pick up the pieces as Grimsby tries to fight off a total ban on North Sea cod fishing and the Mariners lie in their sorriest state since before most of the Cod Almighty team were born. If Grahams Rodgerses faces a test of his personalities in trying to get his teams back on the right tracks in the weekses ahead, he is at least talking a good game in his interview with today's Grimsby Telegraphs. When a team plays as excellently as Town did against Walsall and Lincoln recently only to then serve up such utter shite as 4,029 paying customers received two days ago, questions are raised over the strength of their manager's character, but Rodger isn't dodging the necessity to begin with a blast of the verbals. "I thought it was a totally inadequate and spineless performance in the second half," says the boss. "If anybody in that dressing room thinks it's acceptable they are mistaken." It remains to be seen whether this no-more-Mr-Nice-Guy media technique will extend into some much-needed hairdryer treatment on the training ground and in the dressing room. Can you imagine Graham getting nasty? And there were times when it seemed Russell Slade could do nothing but rant. Surely there's a happy medium.

"Boooo, sort it out," writes John Pakey in an email to the Diary, capturing the thoughts of many at this time. "I'm in a catch-22 situation at the moment," he continues. "My dad is in full-on moan mode at the moment over the manager. He's not happy with Graham Rodger and as I say: 'Oh, should we get rid of him?' he comes back with the gripe that we'd waste cash paying him off because he's got a two-year contract. I'd like to nominate this as an inspired bit of moaning, covering all the angles. Try and make that one positive Mr Fenty!" Indeed, John's dad seems to have raised the bar for Grimbarian gripemongers everywhere. The next challenge must be for someone to work the Fentydome into a rant about Rodger. Perhaps we could track down the caller to Saturday's Football Forum who argued that Town are teetering on the brink of the Conference because the manager doesn't wear a suit during the match.

Dan Humphrey, meanwhile, has emailed to draw our attention to a BBC interview with Darren Ferguson of Wrexham, one of only four teams in the fourth division who haven't accumulated more points than Rodger's battlers (although the Welsh side has played two games fewer than Town). "This is as bad as it's been. We've lost eight of the last nine games," says Fergie. "The most disappointing this is we don't look like winning. We look like a team in absolute freefall." And how does this relate to the plight of the Mariners, Dan? "It got me thinking, how many relegation places are there? Two or three? Wrexham and Macclesfield and Boston will do..." Just Macclesfield and Wrexham would do, Dan, since there are still only the two relegation places - and if the Football League suddenly starts taking its responsibilities seriously and expels Boston for fraud, Town's safety would be all but guaranteed, and we could start to relax already. What?

Lastly today, to take our mind off the woes of the Mariners, Mat Hare has emailed to take the piss out of whoever it was that wrote this column last Friday. "Day Off Diary's being ripped off," opines Mat. "A 'gravy-filled steak slice' - that's either a misnomer or a complete rip-off. I'd want some meat in my steak slice, preferably beef. I certainly wouldn't want it to be full of gravy." And even if it were half full, being a Grimbarian, you'd always have to think your steak slice was half empty.