Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Tuesday 26 August 2008

26 August 2008

Hello, readers, and welcome to another joyous week of supporting Grimsby Town. If you're looking for positives to take after Saturday's utterly rubbish home defeat by Chesterfield, then look no further than an interesting take from Cod Almighty's Simon Wilson. Simon, for reasons best known to himself, has been known to watch rugby league, and writes: "The St Helens boss (much respected New Zealander viewed as one of the best rugby league bosses in the world) was saying over the weekend that he treats the first month of the season as 'pre-season'. If he didn't he feels his players would fade away in the final six weeks of the rugby league season. He also thinks that playing teams in a competitive match is far better preparation for his players than meaningless 'exhibition' matches. Entering the final month of the season, Saints are on a winning streak currently lasting twenty matches." It's a thought-provoking observation, which gains further credibility when you remember how Russell Slade's lot ran out of steam the other year. And if you want another positive, then on a day when three of your back four are being played out of position and you're basically never, ever going to score a goal no matter what, surely only losing 1-0 counts as a big moral victory, right?

Local politician and GTFC chairman John Fenty (Con) can today be found singing the praises of Town's rejuvenated youth set-up. While earlier this decade it took a last-ditch appeal from the then manager Paul Groves to dissuade the club from scrapping its reserve team to save money, these days the Mariners are all about spending cash they haven't got in the hope of sifting out one or two Kevin Drinkells or Danny Norths to give us all a lift. "There are so many football clubs out there who have gone through a similar financial predicament that we have and shelved their youth schemes," the councillor tells today's Grimsby Telegraph. "We resisted that and frankly, we have done the reverse. We invested in the youth set-up and have extended it, even though it wasn't something we could really afford... With Alan Buckley, you have someone big and brave enough to blood youngsters if they are good enough," concludes JF(C), somewhat overlooking the fact that Alan Buckley just the other day fielded a left-back at centre-back, a left winger at left-back and a centre-back at right-back because he didn't feel quite big and brave enough to blood Matty Bird and Grant Normington.

Several of the young players who owe their very lives to Grimsby Town's youth set-up will shortly have a chance to repay some of this debt, as the reserve team opens its 2008-09 league campaign against Bradford tonight, and if you've got the remotest clue where the Coral Windows Stadium is then you're a better man than the Diary. The Central League doesn't seem to have a sponsor any more, but one hopes that the sport of football as we know it will struggle on somehow.

Lastly today, Chris Beeley has emailed the Diary responding to last Wednesday's statistical analysis by Richard Lord of Town's record in the cups under Buckley. Chris has done a few sums of his own and come up with the following results.

Percentage of occasions we've played shite that Buckley has admitted it was anything to do with him - 0
Percentage of supporters who know what Stuart Watkiss actually does - 0
Percentage of supporters who think we will avoid relegation this year - 100
Percentage of supporters who think the reason for that's because of those unfortunates with points deductions - 100
Percentage of supporters who think the new stadium will ever happen - 3
Percentage of supporters who think it will do us any bloody good if it does - 2
Percentage of supporters (self included) who have lost pre-season optimism rapidly - 89
Percentage of supporters (self included) who will turn their backs on the club as a result - 0
Percentage of supporters who think our true level is proper division 2, flirting with the play-offs until about March every season - 93
Percentage of non-supporters who think our true level is proper division 4, flirting with, and ultimately accepting the advances of, relegation to the Conference - 99
Percentage of my time I've spent doing this when I should be doing something else - about 50

Thanks, Chris - I hope you haven't got too behind with your work or painting the spare bedroom or whatever else you should have been doing! One assumes the other 11 per cent of supporters didn't have any pre-season optimism to lose...