Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Monday 9 March 2009
9 March 2009
Last Tuesday the Diary resolved not to draw a prognosis for the Mariners' survival or otherwise in the Football League from their home defeat by Brentford that night. Town were facing the league leaders in weather conditions that made a meaningful game of football impossible; and had the exact same match taken place in the context of a winning run, some fans might have regarded it as an unlucky blip rather than a portent of certain relegation. By the same token, the Diary as is determined as Mr Re-Newell not to conclude from Saturday's bit of fun that GTFC are suddenly much more likely to dodge the drop. Bournemouth will still finish above us and Chester are still the team to catch. By the way, Lincoln fans, if any of you are reading, please shut up with all this rot about sacking your manager because you defended badly for five minutes; and can everyone stop calling it the Blue Square and playing into the hands of corporate bastards who care nothing for football? It's the Conference. Thankyou!
Speaking of Chester, it will not have escaped the notice of diligent Grimsby supporters that their club is running free coaches to the epoch-defining clash between the two clubs at the Stadium of Deviancy this Saturday, especially since Guest Diary mentioned it here on Friday. More details are up on Town's superb new official website today, including the numbers of places available and how to get yourself one. The SNOS reports excitedly that "Ten 49-seat coaches, provided at a reduced cost by Coopers Coaches and part-funded by Town shirt sponsors Youngs, will offer 450-plus free spaces." Chester, meanwhile, have cut the price of entry to a tenner in a desperate bid to avoid the home support being outnumbered by 490 Town fans.
Stuart Elliott made a decent contribution to the Mariners' cause during his two months here on loan, especially considering the way his lack of match practice inevitably caught up with him during Town's recent spell of two games a week. I am using the past tense because the former King$ton Communications FC hero and Northern Ireland international has chosen not to stay for a third month and returned to parent club Doncaster, where he will inevitably go back to not having a chance to make any contribution at all. I am also dissenting from the miserablist notion that Elliott was somehow giving less than 100 per cent, which was expressed here and there during the second of those two months, probably by people who walk out of Blundell Park with at least 10 per cent of the match still to play.
Lastly today, but certainly not leastly, did you hear 606 with Danny Baker on your way home from the Brentford game last Tuesday? If you don't know what I'm on about, Grimsby played Brentford last Tuesday and lost by the only goal of an awful game. If you still don't know, 606 with Danny Baker is basically the only radio phone-in about football that isn't utterly shit, and indeed has often brought solace recently to members of the CA team en route back to our homes after awful defeats on miserable Tuesday nights. Today, I think, will be your last chance to download the podcast of last Tuesday's show, which you must do, because the CA team emailed Danny about the Grimsby Reaper in a bid to get the Mariners into his hypothetical 'totalitarian league' (which would represent the whole of football in the event of a dictatorship assuming control of the nation and getting rid of all but 20 clubs). It starts at 27:08 but listen to the whole thing, and then join our campaign to have Selflovejoy and Mr Spoons ejected from the airwaves forever.