Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Monday 30 June 2008
30 June 2008
Regular Diary reporting back in for dooty SIR! And just like the stormcloud that synchronises with your picnic, all the exciting transfer activity that took place in my absence seems to have come to an abrupt end the minute I returned to the Diary hotseat. No offence to the Myspace Mariners, but the news that Town's youth team will face their nouveau-riche counterparts from King$ton Communication$ FC in the first round of the Puma Youth Alliance Cup Northern Section quickens the pulse a little less than last week's fantastic news that GTFC have closed a deal to get shot of Ciaran 'Chocolate Fireguard' Toner. Doubtless the lazy sod will have an inspired first few weeks with Rochdale, and it would represent a major shock for the player not to score at least once when his new club visits Cleethorpes on the first day of next season, but once he's back in his comfort zone Dale fans can look forward to an endlessly disheartening sequence of dispossessions as Toner wastes a promising position by clumsily running straight in to an opposing defender, and then wastes a promising position by clumsily running straight in to an opposing defender, and then wastes a promising position by clumsily running straight in to an opposing defender...
While the Diary was laid low with a nasty case of work, you readers continued to send emails this way with your hopes and dreams, interesting questions and savage broadsides denouncing the administrative practices of Grimsby Town Football Club. Matt Pakes, for one, was disappointed with the execution of Town's current offer of a half-price shirt with a Mariners World subscription. "I followed the vague instructions on the page to 'email the club'. Three email addresses later I got a response from that Dale bloke asking for my account details. So I sent some back, including one indicating that my subscription is up for renewal on the 30th of August. At almost lightning speed I received a reply saying that I would only be able to claim my shirt 10 days after the 30th. So despite not claiming a shirt for last season with this year's subscription, I now have to wait a whole two months and a bit for this season's. Screw that - I'll pay full price and hope GTFC puts the money to something useful, like a defender." At least your wish was granted on the latter, eh, Matt?
We'll get through more of your emails later in the week, but for now we'll finish with Martyn Wyburn's. "Given the slow pace of season ticket sales and Town's form over the last few years I'd like to ask this question (although in an Eeyore sort of way I don't expect an answer): are the supporters getting the team they deserve or is the team getting the support it deserves?" Well, readers, email diary@codalmighty.com with your answers to that one, but in the meantime here's the Diary's twopenn'orth. It utterly shamed our town, in the early 2000s, that no more than five or six thousand people would turn out to see a second-flight football team, and we've ended up a fourth-division club because we have fourth-division support (to go along with some fourth-division executive decision-making, of course). Support should be unconditional, and the only way fans can help to make a rubbish football team better is to keep going to watch it, so they can use the ticket money to attract better players. Except all those fans who've just bought their first season ticket for King$ton Communication$ FC, of course, for whom top-flight football is the unjust reward for the locals' steadfast refusal to support their team for the first 104 years of its existence. Football, she's a cruel mistress. I'm off for a cup of tea. See you tomorrow.