Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Monday 14 November 2011

14 November 2011

Miss Guest Diary writes: My enthusiasm for all things Town has been partially rekindled this week. Firstly there was the buzz around the signing of Manny Panther - what a fantastic name. From reading his Twitter feed, he seems to be interested in many things outside of football: his recent Tweets have ranged across the global financial crisis, chocolate addiction, Catholic priests and, most important of all, where to get the best fish and chips. The answer to which is, of course, Steel's. Oh, and I hear he's also a decent midfielder.

Adding to my enthusiasm was the performance against Port Vale - the first time this century that Town haven't suffered a miserable defeat at Burslem (every one of which I have witnessed). I felt so encouraged that I've decided to make an exception to my no-Tuesday-football-this-season rule and attend the replay. In his post-match interview with Radio Humberside, Shorty praised the players for putting in a "really good shift" and hinted that, if they can achieve some consistency, the only way is up. I still have a Town mug with that slogan on from 1993 when we were in the old second division and aspiring to be promoted to the first. Oh the irony.

But then I watched the draw for the FA Cup second round to discover that Town's reward for beating Port Vale would be a trip to Salisbury of the Conference South. That feels like a lose-lose situation to me: not a small enough team to make it an easy game, but not the sort of challenge that always seems to bring out the best in Town. And a long way to travel. I will still go to the replay on the 22nd, but my enthusiasm has definitely been dampened.

I long ago decided that I am of too nervous a disposition to listen to games on the radio. Every time the opposition had the ball in Town's half, every slight note of excitement in the commentator's voice led me to assume Town were going to concede. So I either didn't bother to follow games I wasn't attending or relied on teletext. But this season I have discovered the pleasure of following games on Twitter. There is little or no nervous anticipation because the events are recorded after they have happened, but equally, the news is almost immediate. Gone are the days of turning off the TV at five o'clock safe in the knowledge that Town have either won or drawn, only to be confronted later with the realisation that the teletext page had failed to update and we'd actually lost.

I have, however, learned not to take every Tweet as gospel - I quickly realised that there are some fans who only ever see the positives and others who are a bit too quick to write Town off. What can be interesting is seeing what the opposition think - to have someone Tweet during the York game that Elding looked dangerous certainly brought a smile to my face.

Something else that made me smile was the GTFC merchandising booklet which arrived in the post this weekend. There seems to be no end to the items you can manufacture in black and white and stick a Town badge on - oven glove, anyone? If you can't find something to please at the club shop, you could always try visiting the Grimsby Town Supporters Trust spend and raise page, which raises money for the trust by linking to retail websites. Ooh, I see they have a link to Amazon; well, that's my morning sorted. Happy shopping!