Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Wednesday 2 July 2008

2 July 2008

With an entire week having passed since Town's last dip into the transfer market, itchy-fingered fans are sure to be filling messageboard megabytes with their anxieties about the team's ability to progress next season. And just in time, a piece in today's Grimsby Telegraph finds Lord Alan Buckley in characteristically relaxed form - "I've spoken to one or two agents about a couple of players and we'll have to wait and see what now develops" - and yet prepared to add a note of urgency: "I know that I would like to get one or two other things going sooner rather than later." The Telewag focuses on another reassurance from the manager - that young Ryan Bennett will still get to play football in 2007-08 despite the arrival of somewhat less young Richard Hope and Matt Heywood - but it is noteworthy that the Mariners boss has chosen to emphasise his ongoing endeavours to improve his squad ahead of the big kick-off in five weeks' time. Perhaps he is anticipating the restlessness of the messageboards through some kind of managerial sixth sense - because, of course, he doesn't go on your internet.

"Never go back," they say, but the Buckster, as we have seen from his three spells in charge at Blundell Park and two at Walsall, is not a man to pay heed to such sentiments. Later this month he will go back again - to his home town of Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, and take with him a Mariners team to play the local semi-pro side in a pre-season friendly. The visit to Eastwood Town has now been scheduled, and anyone wishing to see what GTFC missed out on in Miles Chamberlain had best note down the date of Wednesday 30 July. If you're running out of space on your Billy bookcase for all your Roly and John DVDs, Eastwood is quite handy for the Nottingham Ikea as well.

"Didn't Mr Fenty recently give the official view on Town's rightful place?" begins an email to the Diary from Steve Lang. "Top end of League Two or bottom half of League One, didn't he say? If so, why do we need a 20,000-capacity stadium? Perhaps he and AB are not singing from the same hymn sheet? Or maybe Mr Stockdale was being strung a line? If so, he'll soon twig should we go into the new season with no more new signings! Scunny and Colchester have recently discovered that gates of 6,000 or so are no longer enough to survive/thrive for five or six seasons in the Championship. Last season Forest had a wage cap of £4,000 a week and lost players like Kris Commons and Sammy Clingan to Championship clubs who are willing to pay significantly more than that. If that is happening to a club with weekly gates of 20,000 or more, what chance have the Grimsbys of this world got?" Thanks Steve, and speaking of the Fentydome, the Diary can't help worrying that an all eggs/one basket-type danger may be arising. Given the old anchor tenant conundrum in the present economic climate, Town might end up needing a better marketing plan B than some questionably designed posters on the walls of fish and chip shops.

Antony Chapman's fascinating archaeological find in yesterday's Diary has prompted Chris Beeley to do some digging of his own: "and, lo and behold, I found the programme for the first game I ever attended, Town v Halifax, 18/11/78 (I was 10, bit of a late starter, sorry, my dad was at sea a lot). We won 2-1, I was hooked, thus ensuring a lifetime of football misery for me with the occasional fantastic, against-the-odds, adrenalin-pumping miracle (Anfield 2001, Goodison 1984, etc). We were in proper Division 4 then and riding high, fifth behind Wimbledon, Reading, the hated Barnsley, and Portsmouth. We went up that year and Brolly's heroics against Everton followed the next season. Heady days. Attendances in the early part of that '78-79 season were about what they are now - so much for my memories of heaving throngs on the Pontoon lifting me off my feet!" Thankyou for that too, Chris. Town have never been that well supported, really, have they? The older generation bang on about McMenemy taking the players to the docks, but when 18,000-odd turned up for the title decider in '72, most of them had fucked off again a month or two into the following season. I wonder if many other potential fans whose dads were on the trawlers lacked Chris's persistence and drifted away from the game.

So how do these two readers reckon we're going to get on in 2008-09? "I think Buckley's shored up the defence with his three signings so far," says Chris, "so if Jarman maintains his progress and Butler stays fit and interested, I can see us going close next season. Come on Town!" Steve sounds more cautious but ultimately predicts a similar sort of outcome: "I reckon that a valiant, but ultimately unsuccessful, stab at the play-offs is the best we can expect from the squad as it stands now." Keep your emails coming to diary@codalmighty.com, folks, and you might even get your jaded and fed up Diary excited again come August.