Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Wednesday 13 August 2008

13 August 2008

Now then. Guest Diary here, trying to slip in to the regular Diarist's red Converse trainers while he has to work for a living today impressing the suits or summat. And the only thing missing last night amidst the entertaining football from both sides with moves, shots and saves aplenty, was a decent crowd to enjoy it. Town now await the second round draw tonight with interest after beating Tranmere 2-0 - and on this performance they will be pleased to welcome almost anyone to Blundell Park and give them a game.

Lord Buckley told the Grimsby Telegraph: "I'm delighted with the result. Like Saturday, we kept a really good discipline to our game in the first half. They had a couple of looks at our goal, which a team like that is going to have against you. At times, we played some good football and created one or two decent chances. We scored a very well-worked goal. It was a terrific bit of play. I thought Martin (Butler) should have finished it off himself but Hunty was in the right place to get the lead for us. The second goal was a terrific break as well, albeit ending with an own-goal. We then dug in because we got very tired towards the end."

Two clean-sheet-swallows do not a summer make, and they are queueing up to bugger off back home anyway, but it is a cracking start not to leak a single goal against two decent footballing sides. And if creating chances was not happening enough on Saturday, then the trend was reversed last night as Town tried to move the ball much more quickly in to the danger zone. Butler worked his socks off and was real handful all night; Hunt got the sponsor's man of the match again; Heywood was commanding and a real leader and Barnes pulled off yet more top class saves. The spine, so beloved of TV pundits, has appeared. And we have proper wingers.

Let's put the improvement so far in to perspective: Town have migrated from acting like a small impecunious Conference-threatened team who concede silly goals nearly every game, in to a small impecunious club who have a balanced squad with loads of commitment and endeavour and a recognisable shape and pattern to their play. The new signings all performed well last night but one of the few missing ingredients is match fitness. You can't make a bad player good but you can get a decent player fit so the future outcome to a degree lies with Mr Watkiss(es) and Mr Moore. Buckley can feel quietly satisfied this morning with his signings and the initial results of his strategy to tighten the defence and create chances via entertaining wing play.

The superb new official Town web site has announced that tickets for the away match at Lincoln are now on sale to season ticket holders. Strangely the article claims that this will be a 3pm kick-off. I have no reason to doubt this except that the last few years have been early kick offs over zealously policed by what seem like hundreds of rather thuggish policemen. So be careful - the kick-off time might change? See yer.