Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Wednesday 26 November 2008

26 November 2008

In the end Liam Trotter and Mike Newell decided to give it another month, but it availed little at Macclesfield last night as Town again failed to win a game they had the better of - in the first half, at least. There was hitting of posts and decrying of goals wrongly disallowed for offside; there was some decent football played as well, and if the Mariners are yet to hit the winning run that will lift them decisively clear of the fourth division relegation zone, Newell's side is at least now in the habit of losing narrowly and drawing - a distinct improvement from just a few weeks ago.

Five Star Mariners is a headline from the superb new official website, on a story about the youth team following up their 3-2 win over Scunthorpe in the Puma Youth Alliance League Cup on Saturday with an excellent 5-1 triumph over Walsall in the Midland Floodlit Youth Cup last night. And there you were thinking it was a wheeze by John Fenty (Con) whereby Town pay back in a renaming sponsorship deal some of the cash the former Five Star Fish supremo has sunk into the club.

Grimsby Town are not the only side in northern Lincolnshire - and not even the oldest - to have very recently recorded their first league win of the season. The area's senior black and whites, Brigg Town, finally did likewise last Saturday, watched by the Diary, and it caught my attention that their first-half penalty was scored by Nathan Would. Sure enough, he used to play for the Myspace Mariners, you know - as did Paul Ashton, Nathan Emson and Alan Lamb, who have all been registered with Brigg this season. With Giovanni Carchedi at Lincoln United and Darren Mansaram now having joined Retford United from laughing stock Leigh Genesis, the Northern Premier League Division One South is a veritable stockpile of former GTFC youngsters. Are there any names I've missed? Does a half-forgotten ex-member of the Mariners' youth team now strut their stuff in a non-League side near you? Email diary@codalmighty.com and tell us all. Anything's better than looking at the league table.