Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Tuesday 30 December 2008

30 December 2008

There are some fuckwitted numbskulls in this world, reader, and some of them claim to support the same football team as you and me. Perhaps inevitably given that they have just been to watch that team for the first time in ages, and therefore not seen the steady progress Mike Newell has made so far in rebuilding a desperately poor squad, there are people using the comments sections of the Grimsby Telegraph website to air their considered opinion that the best way forward for the Mariners would be to sack the manager again. Happily for the club, John Fenty (Con) appears to have a better grasp of football than language, and when he says of Newell: "His energy levels are prolific", we can at least rest assured that the chairman is aware of what a good thing he's on to with his most recent managerial appointment. JF(C) offers an especially vivid demonstration of the boss's prolific energy levels with the observation that "he took on Alan Buckley's car and, within three weeks, he had done so much mileage the sponsor could not support the car any more." Quite a lot of support seems to be just as fragile as that sponsor's.

It is no coincidence, of course, that Town's best performers in recent weeks have been the players brought in by Newell: Adam Proudlock, Jean-Paul Kalala, Rob Atkinson, Jean-Louis Akpa Akpro. And it is no surprise that the manager has made public his wish to keep his effective loan players at Blundell Park beyond the expiration of their short-term contracts early in the new year. "We are waiting on the clubs that they are associated with to make decisions," Mr Re-Newell is quoted on the Mariners' superb new official website. "We would like to keep them, maybe extended [sic.] their loans or even make them permanent. It's out of our hands until we know what Barnsley, Darlington and Oldham want to do." Should there be any lingering doubt about the manager's ability to transform Town's fortunes in the medium term, let us bear in mind that he has not yet had a transfer window to work in; that the substantial improvements he has made so far have all been while the window has been closed. Imagine a whole team playing as well as Proudlock, Kalala, Atkinson and Akpa Akpro. Close your eyes and imagine it. It might not happen this season, but if Newell stays in the big chair then it will happen sooner or later.