Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Monday 22 November 2010
22 November 2010
It's hard to believe your own eyes sometimes. Your Guest Diarist witnessed the one-all home draw with Barrow on Saturday but by Monday morning I can't really tell you whether Town were shit, unlucky, or just Town. If you read the Grimsby Town superb new official website report, we dominated them completely. But the Barrow fans' email newsletter thingy quotes one of the away contingent: "First of all, Grimsby did not dominate the whole match as their official website suggests. We played really well at times and were on top for several periods of the match. We played good football with Sheridan spraying some good passes and leading by example with his tackling, running and enthusiasm." Hey buddy, that's superb new official website - homage where it is due. And no, we didn't ask your permission to quote this, for reasons explained elsewhere on our site.
But as one set of messageboard folk scream how utterly utterly horrible the whole two hours at Blundell Park were (and I have to admit the sight of the Town chairman ostentatiously wolfing a cheeseburger as he walked through the Pontoon, just to show us all what delicious and good-value snacks can be had on match day, was a sight that has haunted me all weekend), I can still faintly remember quite enjoying myself watching two average Conference sides finding ways to avoid beating each other. Manager Woods, in his (paid-for) post-match comments saw what I obviously missed, citing "countless goalmouth scrambles". Countless is a hell of a big number, right? Now I'm even losing even my most tenuous grasp of the English language. Tony Butcher has written a match report too - read it here. If you can't be arsed - and you should be, gentle reader; get a grip - then it says "it was unedifying, uninspired and unsurprising". Maybe we did have countless goalmouth action but as sure as eggs is eggs we didn't have countless shots did we?
Third paragraph in and Woodses is still talking to the press. Sixteen minutes in rambling total. He's told his subscribers everything he has ever told them before at least twice. Here's a few grains from the winnowing: Ademeno's other hamstring was tight so he was removed as a precaution; when we play 4-3-3 it's alright when we are attacking but we get outnumbered in midfield when we don't get possession to the three frontmen. Woods is plainly struggling to decide how to play against Conference opposition, saying every formation he picks always has a negative side to it. Oh. Thank God, he's finally shut up.
In other news, John McDermott has a Herculean task on his hands after agreeing to get Danny North fit after the former Town striker showed up to explain that the Irish have stopped playing football for a few months for reasons, well, I think I will leave it to them to explain. Danny needs 'international clearance', though, before he can actually play for Harrogate - very grand that sounds, eh? And the first round draw for the FA Trophy happens this lunchtime - very exciting: very, very keen to find out whom we have drawn, I am
A new facet to our non-League life. In the league we play, we draw, we look enviously at the likes of Crawley and Luton thrashing the opposition. We dream that Connell will one day put a full shift in, that Ademeno will one day play ninety minutes fully fit. Even that one day he'll score. But at least the cheeseburgers are officially tasty - that's one problem fixed with only the tiniest globule of ketchup on that tie to spoil the day. See yer.