Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Monday 24 October 2011

24 October 2011

Miss Guest Diary writes: I ventured back to Blundell Park on Friday for the Luton game, for which I apologise, given my newly acquired Jonah status. But, apart from the result, I thought it was a good game which I enjoyed watching for the first time in several months. Luton were obviously very good but Town tried very hard and almost succeeded in matching them for much of the game. They certainly looked more solid with I'Anson in defence. So I was surprised to hear nothing but doom and gloom emanating from Radio Humberside on the drive home: that this result could mean the end for the team, maybe even the club.

I didn't agree and simply couldn't bear hearing this so, as the driver wanted to listen, I employed the 21st-century equivalent of putting your fingers in your ears and humming: I inserted my iPod headphones. I did hear snippets from the radio in between tracks, including part of the Shouty interview in which he claimed never to have previously "lost more than one game in a row". Pondering how you can have a row of one thing fortunately kept me distracted until the next track started. But I felt obliged to visit the Grimsby Telegraph this morning to check out what else he had to say about Friday's game. Reading that the management team are at their "wits' end" and questioning whether they are good enough to manage Town, I wish I hadn't bothered.

Then something happened which made me realise that things might be even worse for Town than I had imagined. Reading the Secret Footballer column in The Guardian about some more nonsense being considered by the Premiership to keep out the riff-raff, I saw that when he needed to patronise mention some lower division clubs he chose York, Bury and Northampton. What about Town - haven't we always been to go-to club to append to the phrase "no disrespect to the likes of..."? Are we so far off the radar of the footballing world that we can't even aspire to being patronised? Heaven help us now.

To take my mind off this I began to browse one of those Christmas gift magazines they give away with newspapers at this time of year, this one disingenuously titled "For gifts you can't wait to give", which translates as "things you don't need and can't afford anyway". Heading straight to the gadget section to drool over the laptops and iPads, I noticed that you can now buy your child a Lego digital camera or mp3 player - whatever happened to board games and blow football?

At least the Town youth team did us proud, beating Hartlepool United 4-2 on Saturday with a hat trick from Jack Bradbury. I'd like to tell you where that puts them in Youth Alliance North East table but all I could discover was that they were 11th (out of 13) last week. I found this on the Football League website which made me wonder how come we can have a youth team that's part of the League set up when the club itself isn't.

Don't forget, tonight at 7pm there is an open meeting at Blundell Park organised by the Grimsby Town Supporters Trust to tell fans about their activities and encourage them to get involved. I won't be going myself - not because I don't think it's a good cause; I am sure it is - but because I promised myself I wouldn't take on any new commitments for a year after I retired. This was necessary because I have a tendency to volunteer for things, some of which I later regret but can't get out of. An experience that I suspect Shouty and Shorty might be sharing this morning.