Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Monday 26 March 2007

26 March 2007

Alan Buckley and a few thousand Town fans will have been sorely frustrated when the team just about waved cheerio to any hopes of making this season's fourth division play-offs by losing at home to Peterborough on Saturday. It's not all bad news, though, because the Mariners' renowned administration team will have been breathing an almighty sigh of relief. If the club had still been in with a chance of making seventh place come the last game of the season, Town's backroom staff could have faced a huge backlash for their decision last week to refuse 1,500 standing tickets at Shrewsbury, leaving travelling Mariners with just 500 seats for the game. Thanks to the errors that handed the Posh their two decisive goals, though, a play-off place would now seem to be beyond Lord Buckley's side - who will now be playing only for the small matter of pride and their professional futures when they head to Shropshire on 5 May - and Town fans' demand for tickets should be considerably lower as a result. Don't you just love a happy ending?

There are, of course, another six games to play before we cram into that shrivelled allocation at Shrewsbury to bid farewell to Sir John McDermott. The first of these is away at Notts County this Saturday, and Town's official website has today published its regular travel guide for those making the short journey eastwards to Meadow Lane. Standard adult tickets will cost £16 each, the OS informs us. Concessions are available, it seems, but only for over-65s who are in full-time higher education, as the £9 "senior citizen" tickets come with the proviso "proof of age and student card required". I've heard of lifelong learning but this is ridiculous.