Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Thursday 26 November 2009

26 November 2009

The performances of Jammal Shahin and Bradley Wood in recent months have shown that it's not all bad at Grimsby Town Football Club. If you're a young player just coming through, it seems, then it will take you at least a year before you pick up the habits of your more established teammates and stop giving a gibbon's hairy arsehole whether you win or lose. In the meantime, as the supporters who pay your wages are entitled to expect, you'll actually try hard and play the game as well as you can. It follows, then, that the further away from the first team a player is, the less he has been exposed to the culture of shrugging incompetence which pervades the very fabric of the club, and the better he will play.

This new theory from the Diary is supported strongly by the latest result for Town's under-10s, who apparently beat Mansfield 12-0, er, sometime recently, we dunno, it doesn't say. One area where this team fails to deliver, relative to the Mariners' other age groups, is that of cringe-inducing surnames used as forenames in the team, with only a Reece York and a Keelan Taylor to keep us entertained, but their form on the pitch will suggest to all right-thinking fans that Neil Woodses must immediately start fielding the under-10s in Town's first-team fixtures, and send out the likes of Leary and Conlon to pick up vital experience on loan at a selection of North East Lincolnshire primary schools.

On the other hand, the reserves lost 4-1 last night, but then again it was against Middlesbrough reserves, who are probably quite a bit better than Bradford, so Town's second string could likely do a better job than the first team at the moment as well, except perhaps the part that contains notorious Grimsby hardman Danny Boshell, who at least managed not to get himself sent off. The Mariners' goal was scored by Jean-Louis Akpa Akpro, which is not a phrase you hear every day, and if you want to know more the Diary recommends an excellent report on Boro's official website which contains far more information about even Town's substitutions than the rather less comprehensive account to be found on Town's.

In summary, then, when Neil Woodses says: "In a lot of ways I hope to transfer the spirit we created in the youth team to the first team," the Diary's advice to the manager would be that the easiest and most effective way to do that would be simply to transfer the players.

Alan Richardson has emailed the Diary on the subject of the Football League Supporters Survey, which we looked at yesterday. He writes: "At least the Football League is making a bit of an effort to find out what football supporters think. Has GTFC ever taken the time to ask us what we think? (Clearly that question doesn't need answering.) Anyone with a little common sense, some basic computer skills (I know that counts out GTFC employees) and access to the internet could find out stacks of things about the supporters, and possible supporters, of Grimsby Town that might actually help people care a bit more. Mike Newell was right on one thing - apathy around the whole club. How many of the Diary readers would like to do a job swap for a month with whoever runs the commercial/PR dept at Blundell Park? They could then see what happens in the real world where, when you treat your customers like morons, they take their business elsewhere. So if anyone from the club reads this, please think about taking the time to ask us what we think. We don't want the moon on a stick; just do the basics please."

An excellent idea from Alan there. The Diary, in fact, was inspired to suggest it directly to GTFC, but when I went to the club's customer charter, where I found the email address customerservice@gtfc.co.uk, I remembered discovering that the club doesn't actually check the inbox for that email address, and that it is effectively defunct. I discovered it, in fact, in July 2005. How strange that a defunct email address is still being publicised by the club more than four years later. If only there were some way of letting them know.

Lastly today, let us take refuge from the idiots of the present by considering the freaks of the past. That time is fast approaching when nominations will close for Cod Almighty's November team of the month, and this month the theme is interesting physical phenomena. If you'd like to nominate Town players of the past who were exceptionally fat, thin, tall, short, ugly, mulleted, or otherwise physically distinguished, please do so now!