Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Friday 23 February 2007

23 February 2007

Hi there. East Coast Diary here.

Tomorrow Town play their last game of February, a month which has heralded four successive wins so far, a good run by anyone's standards. Think that's decent? Remember the circumstances. As a result of that run the Mariners have dragged their way up the table from 23rd to 16th over those four games, arresting the immediate danger of being stuck in the relegation places. Which is where there were after a seven match losing streak. An even more impressive and determined response.

This isn't a time for comfort and complacency though. The team aren't out of the woods yet. After defeating Boston and Wrexham recently, yet another team nearby in the league table will provide a stern test: Macclesfield, or "Paul Ince's Macclesfield" as they have come to be known recently. They have battled well to drag themselves up the table over the past three months, in much the same way Town have over the past four weeks. At this point, is surviving relegation now the limit of the ambitions of Grimsby's team, and fans, for this season? Or is this run the start of an over-enthusiastic charge up the table, a case of "too little too late"? Will it all end in a late charge for the unapproachable play-offs? Or does fate hold a dive back into the nether regions of the fourth division? Victory tomorrow will abate the latter, you'd hope. My pessimistic thoughts a couple of sentences reveal that midtable obscurity is the limit of my ambitions. What about you?

Some who won't be seeing whatever the rest of the season holds: Michael Reddy. Lord Buck believes Town fans have seen the last in a Town shirt of the Irishman. Injury is the suggestion, a free move in the summer is the insinuation. Word is also doing the rounds that Gary Cohen will never playing a competitive game of football again, let alone for Town. At least Isaiah Rankin's fit, hey folks.

But let's not look back. Let's look forwards. There are places in the league table to climb. The livewire Martin Paterson's departure? Don't worry. Look to local lad Danny North who receives glowing AB praise, along with the revitalised Peter Bore. Youth players bigged up by the Buck? Whatever next? The man is earning his corn working with what he has, more than the vogue in today's news where managers are drafting in bodies left, right and centre on loan.

Let us hope the good run continues, and there isn't a repeat of last season's anti-climatic performance at Moss Rose. Up the Mariners.