Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Tuesday 4 January 2011

4 January 2011

The undertow may be dragging Grimsby Town FC inexorably down the leagues, but the New Year weekend saw some defiant Town waves crash down on Mansfield and Histon. Thirteen goals, nine scorers. Yesterday saw manager Woods sensibly introduce three substitutes to rest key players. They all came on and scored. If there is a world league based on the calendar year 2011, your Guest Diarist thinks we would be top. And what goals - cute free kicks from the top drawer not the sock drawer; audacious lobs from the halfway line; outrageous back-heels; quickly taken throw-in goals... why, we even scored from a corner.

I suppose the Christmas of 1933 saw a better pair of results: we beat Manchester United 3-1 away in the old Division Two on Christmas Day, and then promptly thumped them at home on Boxing Day 7-3. So keep some perspective, folks - we beat Histon yesterday, a place nowhere near as big as Brigg. But you have to muse on why, don't you? We look fitter in the second half these days. We have a full squad available with a strong bench. We've spent hundreds of thousands more than them. Our benefactor owners must be purring for once as their bank accounts dwindle. Perhaps this isn't the day to harp on about the inequality in football but it does distort the game. And in the last ten years we've seen it from both angles.

So spare a thought for the super-friendly folk at Histon, who offered the Town fans the most friendly of welcomes, who took defeat on the chin and still smiled and who, I hope, will keep turning up to support their team.

Meanwhile we face the trip to 'form team' Wrexham on Saturday (they drew at home to Mansfield and got a point at Histon). Manager Dean Saunders is explicit in his intentions: "It should be a good game and hopefully we get a massive crowd here next week because, as we normally do, we'll be going for the throat." Oh, well, going for the throat can't be worse than what Mansfield tried to do to us, eh? See yer.