Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Wednesday 19 October 2011

19 October 2011

John Fenty (Con), Thursday 24 March 2011: "Rob and Paul have made a distinguished start to their managerial careers with back-to-back promotions. Since going into management their successes have been remarkable, win percentages of 65 per cent, 61 per cent and 58 per cent in successive seasons."

Remarkable indeed. Remarkable that two football men can achieve such high win percentages at other clubs and these magically disappear when they move east to Blundell Park. Remarkable that, eight months and 27 games into their Grimsby Town careers, Scott and Hurst's win percentage stands at 22.2 recurring. Their loss percentage is much more impressive, however, at just over 48. And as fans will observe, Neil Woods was sacked for much less; sacked for the ignominy of failing to beat Forest Green at home, after which our league record stood at won 11, drawn 12, lost nine (that's a loss percentage of 28, in case you were wondering).

Let's not pretend that Neil Woods' sacking was a decision entirely free from the stigma of being the man in charge when we fell out of the Football League. We were all feeling the frustration of not being 'in the mix' come February, and Woods was an easy target for boo-boys. But after bleating on for years about the value of stability, Fenty still thought it was the right time and, worryingly, the right thing to do in sacking Woods - when history should have told him that sacking a manager at Grimsby has invariably led to more misery.

Your West Yorkshire Diary remembers how embarrassing it felt to fall into the fourth division in 2004 and have to play Scunthorpe in league games. We had the 'Rochdale on a Tuesday night' scenario and we all couldn't wait to go straight back up to escape those horrors. Fans used to think it couldn't get any worse than being in the same league as Scunny and watching them go up. But it did get worse, as we all know. Even the season when we finally plummeted into the Conference we began it thinking that we could be serious promotion contenders. Even David Burns, on Radio Humberside, made his now infamous prediction of tipping us for the title.

This isn't a knee-jerk reaction to our dismal defeat to part-time Ebbsfleet last night. This isn't a call or a demand for Scott and Hurst to be given the old heave-ho. Just when you think a manager, or managers, can't take you any further down the leagues, or that it can't get any worse by sacking them, history shows it can. Lincoln are doing a pretty good job at the minute proving that a sizeable former League team can take part in a relegation scrap in the Conference. And, save for a good win last night, Stockport were doing the same. We're not that far off them, you know.

At the top end of the Conference you will see all the former Football League teams those pundits always quote when they talk about it being a difficult division to get out of. Your Lutons, Yorks, Wrexhams, Kidderminsters and Cambridges have all spent plenty of time in non-League and are only now beginning to get themselves into a position from which they can have a real go at promotion. Teams that come down rarely go straight back up. Relegation prompts them to get their shit together, and shit takes time to sort out.

Sadly we're way off York and Wrexham. We're experiencing what they experienced when they first fell into the Conference. The more time we spend in this division, the more we'll begin to understand what works and what doesn't work. By the agonising process of trial and error, we're learning what doesn't work. It may take years. But what we need to realise is that we've already begun that process, and what we don't want to do is sack managers who are still learning their trade. That was the risk he took when Fenty - blinded by percentages and a failure to attract anyone else to the club - appointed them. It's going to take time - probably more time than our notoriously impatient fans can handle.

Scott and Hurst have assembled a squad that will put in the effort and commitment for 90 minutes. But that's come at a cost, as we've lost the skill and technical ability that York showed they had at the weekend. While effort and commitment alone might have been enough for the duo to get a team out of the lower tiers of non-League, it's not enough to get teams out of the Conference. Therefore Scott and Hurst will have to adapt and learn new skills if they have any real ambitions of getting the Mariners up the table and contesting for promotion.

So then, it's taken 17 games for one of the two managers to make an ominous comment about 'making changes' to the players they brought to the club in the summer. And so the cycle will begin again - loan players, panic buys, stop-gaps. At least I hope not. Maybe Shorty just means that Rob Eagle will finally get a start, Kenny Arthur will replace McKeown and Charlie I'Anson can have another go at showing the rest of our defence how to defend (all three players that were at the club last season, might I add). To be honest, I'd rather he do that than go out and buy another useless tosspiece.