Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Wednesday 19 January 2011

19 January 2011

So, as Lieutenant Columbo might have put it, lemme get this straight. On new year's day Town recorded their biggest league win since the late 1970s. For the next home game, a couple of weeks later, Town played to their smallest league crowd since the late 1960s. I don't know about anyone else, but as far as your original/regular Diary is concerned, no further evidence is required of the sheer towering perversity that defines the thinking of northern Lincolnshire. We love failure, we hate success. That's the Grimsby mindset; that's the Grimsby way.

And what of last night's performance? Twenty minutes in, Kettering looked likelier to rack up a cricket score than to lose their early lead. From around the half-hour mark, though, Town mostly controlled the game. Michael Cummins conspicuously stepped up to the mark and, while Kettering's counterattacking tactics meant there were chances at both ends, the Mariners' win was ultimately deserved.

But did the callers and 'texters' to Radio Humberside later acknowledge that there was anything to the match other than the first 30 minutes? No. Meh meh meh, not good enough, bleh bleh, seventh place in the league, boo hoo, let's sack the manager again and bugger up the next season and a half just so we can keep moaning. It's tempting to suppose that these people left the ground at quarter past eight. But no: they'd just made up their minds to concentrate on the smaller portion of the match which supported their hellish hypothesis, and ignore the greater portion which gave cause for optimism. That's the Grimsby mindset; that's the Grimsby way.

The murmur in the stands before kick-off last night concerned Town's new signing Serge Makofo, who arrived on a three-year deal (THREE-YEAR DEAL) yesterday - from Kettering, funnily enough. Unfortunately for GTFC, the club's normally superb new official website committed a rare blunder in describing Makofo as a "striker" when he seems to be more of a wide midfielder and forward sort of player.

Why unfortunately? Because some supporters have Googled their new player's name, discovered on Wikipedia that he's only scored two league goals, and reached straight for the comfort blanket of assuming the worst. Assuming the worst and effectively writing off a player before we've seen him play. Less jaded observers of local life than the Diary might assume lessons to have been learned from the way many fans looked in similar disdain at the record of, say, Alan Connell on his arrival last summer, only for the player to knock in 20 goals by the middle of January. But no, people will never change. That's the Grimsby mindset; that's the Grimsby way.

He sold his business Five Star Fish in 2004 for around £16.5million. He watched it get sold again in 2007 for £35million. But since then John Fenty has found himself at a loose end. Sure, there's the thrill of the fast cars; sure, there's the glamour of representing Humberston as a Conservative councillor on the unitary authority of North East Lincolnshire. And you can't beat the white knuckle ride of taking over your local football club and overseeing three relegations in seven years.

But after nearly seven years without a proper job, Fenty has at last sought to re-establish his Alarm Clock Britain credentials by helping to recreate a local building firm that bit the dust in the recession. The positivity-infused Town chairman is one of a three-strong team relaunching Topcon - a company credited (if that's the right word) by the Grimsby Telegraph with having "helped build modern Grimsby". If nothing else, the deal should give John Fenty (Top Con) a cheap option should his tattered Fentydome plans ever see the light of day again.

Thanks for reading, folks - that's just about all for today. Remember that you can keep track of Town's frantic fixture rescheduling using Cod Almighty's season index page and Google fixture calendar - and this kind of intense rearrangement of football matches is still very rare in this country so, please, don't have nightmares. Goodnight.