Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Thursday 12 May 2011

12 May 2011

At a loose end this Saturday? No Grimsby players to vent your frustrations at? Still want to moan about your club being shit? Well, why not spend some time emailing John Fenty questions in the exclusive chairman's special question time bonanza extravaganza thing. In the club's latest public relations exercise the superb new official site implores you to "send your burning questions to Grimsby Town chairman John Fenty. Any thing reasonable goes." Of course the first, and also entirely reasonable, question has to be: why the fuck has somebody been inexplicably allowed to put a space in between 'any' and 'thing'?

Your Part-Time Diary can think of several questions. Why do we continually sack managers? How much has the club has spent on paying off players in the last ten years? How much time and money was wasted on stadium planning while simultaneously plummeting through divisions? Do you think the ticket prices are fair and what have you learned from the final game of last season? What is your plan if we don't get promoted next season or the season after, or what if we're relegated? You know - big questions, nothing about the catering or the use of heat-insulating drinks carriers in the ground. But what can he really say to these important questions? I'd expect the generalised answers we all recognise and loathe, about playing budgets and cutting costs and the like.

Atkinson and Garner have made the England C squad to play Portugal next week, although in a colossal squad of 40 players it's entirely possible that they don't get anywhere near the pitch. Ah well, it's some Mariners-related news. There's a definite lull of action at the moment: it's too early to start signing people, no one else has left since last week, and Shorty and Shouty have barely released a soundbite since then. I'm still at the stage where the season ending is a relief; I'm not missing Grimsby yet. I'm sure it will come and the boredom will set in, probably just before I get all stupidly optimistic for next season, forget about the mess that is the club and convince myself that with these five new lads from Boston we're definitely going to storm the league.

If you fancy reliving the past season 'in depth', the Telegraph has produced a season review. It's not very 'in depth' at all and looks like they've printed off a load of results and team line-ups and just thrown in some adjectives to beef it up a bit - probably a good thing, as anything more than an 'in depth' summary could get rather depressing. Oh. and Blundell Park is now attracting the lowest average attendance since the Second World War, which says a lot about the division we're now in, as it is a very respectable average for the Conference. How the mighty Mariners have fallen. Even putting an alliterative 'mighty' in front now sounds wrong. How about 'meek' instead?

That's all today, so go on - get emailing Fenty, even if it's just to annoy him or to ask for tips on the frozen food business. Just remember to keep it reasonable.