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Diary - Thursday 8 October 2009

8 October 2009

Rather than inspiring supporters to celebrate another great cup upset, Town's win at Hartlepool in the Dulux Cup this week has simply got us grumbling about why the side can't reproduce that sort of form in the league. And not without good cause. The Mariners are, as we know, entrenched deeply in their worst long-term run of league form since the foundation of the club in 1878 - and yet Tuesday night was the 10th time this decade that we've knocked a club from a higher division out of a cup competition. Grumble no longer, though, Town fans! The club's superb new official website has revealed an innovative new scheme whereby the team's excellent form in cup competitions can at last result in an improvement to our lowly position in the league. Or at least that's what the Diary assumes was going on when the SNOS examined the odds on Town being able to "bag all three points against Hartlepool".

Are you a Grimsby Telegraph hack sneaking a look at the Diary? Feeling a bit dispirited because of your rubbish pay, job insecurity, and the fact that it's only the spectacular editorial incompetence of Town's superb new official website that stops the Diary scrutinising your own work more closely? Cheer up! Former Town goalkeeper Jonathan Lund has joined first division Burnley - and in reporting this news, the Burnley Express somehow manages to forget the fairly important matter of actually giving the player's name, intimating only that "Burnley have signed keeper former Leeds and Grimsby keeper on a contract until the end of the season". So there are always people doing a worse job than you.

A quick peek into the Diary's inbox next, and it seems that Phil Watson followed yesterday's link to a story about Sir Brian Mawhinney tackling the challenges that face "the football industry" (yep, it actually said that with a straight face). Phil seems to have read the story in its entirety, which is more than the Diary could be arsed to do, and has taken issue with the failed politician and Football League bigwig on his assertion that spending 87 per cent of revenue on wages, as FL clubs apparently do, is unsustainable. "I haven't checked for a long while, but the figure for US major league baseball used to be higher than that," says Phil. "Well over 90 per cent, I think, and still profitable. But then US sports have all sorts of mechanisms (salary caps, minor leagues, drafts, etc) to level the playing field. Trust the Yanks to resort to socialism to make things work. Errr..." It's a shame they can't run their society like they run their sports, isn't it?

That's all from your regular Diary for another week, but stay tuned as always tomorrow for Guest Diary's increasingly rueful but always entertaining look at the world of GTFC (and indeed the world at large). T'ra for now.