Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Thursday 28 February 2008
28 February 2008
Hi guys! Durham Diary back again, shaking things up like a rumble in the jungle of Market Rasen. You're thinking about it, I'm thinking about. Most of Grimsby's thinking about it, but out of courtesy to those trying desperately not to take anything for granted I'll go throughout today's musings without mentioning the 'W' word. Apart from maybe just once. Weather. Now that's quite enough of that.
Town's kitman, Mike Bielby, was 75 on Tuesday, but I only found out today. Many happy returns if you're reading, Mike, and sorry we missed it!
Keith Collins gets an early mention today for having appealed to sense of maths almost immediately after I rolled out of bed. Well done you! KC starts with a snippet he found on the Morecambe Official Site (be it superb, new, or neither). "The Shrimps started brightly in front of a big home crowd..." What of it, you ask. Well it's a good job you did (and an even better job that I get to tell you what you ask), because Keith is only just getting warmed to his point: "With a crowd of 3,207 and Town selling 900 tickets, what is an average crowd for them?" Well, Keith, and average crowd for them at home this season is 3,035, although you make a valid point in that I would suspect (though I don't have the statistics to confirm this) that an average home support does consist of more than 2,300. I feel like I should end this paragraph with an admonishment to Keith for belittling a league club smaller than ourselves, but the chance to do so will arise so rarely these days I'll let him off.
3,207 may seem not very many, but I've checked on the abacus and by my reckoning it's more than 2,800, being the number of tickets currently sold for the return leg at Blundell Park according to Town's SNOS. Yet those in the know at the SNOS reckon we "could be heading for a 9,000 sell out". Now I hate to "nit-pick" (my wooden nose grew three inches as I wrote that) but I reckon this is a contradiction in terms, since the 'Guide to Blundell Park' found elsewhere on the SNOS lists the current capacity as 9,953. I've been through the Colouring Competition rules (downloadable in PDF format from the Football League website) and there isn't anything I've found about having to leave the best part of 1,000 seats unsold, but hey. What I have found is that should Morecambe win by exactly one goal on Tuesday, the match will go to penalties with no 'away goals' rule and no extra time (though the final final does use extra time if the scores are level). Something to bear in mind. The end of the article on the SNOS lists match prices for Tuesday's game. While they refrain from apostrophe abuse in the words "adults", "juniors" and even "students", they can't resist slipping one into "OAP's". Oh, those little scamp's!
What really concerns me is that I always thought Morecambe were the Shrimpers, but I've checked on their OS and they do in fact refer to themselves as the Shrimps. I only hope I've not made a similar mistake whilst cheering on the Marins over the years.
The final line of Keith Collins' email contains just three letters: "utm". And therein lies a sentiment I hope we can all share. Up the Mariners, and good day to you all. Up the Mariners!