Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Tuesday 21 February 2012

21 February 2012

The last time Grimsby Town put out an unchanged team for half a dozen or so games must have been August and September 2003. Paul Groves had made some impressive-looking signings over the summer in a bid to bounce straight back to second-flight football. And Laurens Ten Heuvel began the season in quietly impressive, non-goalscoring form, shortly before the side crashed 8-1 at Hartlepool, heralding a spectacular collapse in form and second consecutive relegation. taking GTFC to the bottom rung of the Football League for the first time in nearly 15 years.

If we forget about some current players being cup-tied for the FA Trophy, we've had another unchanged GTFC starting XI for, oooh, ages. Since Frankie Artus shimmied on at Lincoln over Christmas, the team has picked itself. It's a case of last in first out, though, as the knee injury Artus picked up in Town's win over Southport last Friday looks set to keep him out of action for a week or two. And your original/regular Diary knows what you're thinking. You're thinking, oooh, now we get to have a look at this Louis Soares, and you're all excited like when you've just signed a new player on Football Manager and expecting at least two goals and an assist on his debut.

Soares, though, is cup-tied for FA Trophy games. That nice Kiernan Hughes-Mason can't fill in down the left, either, because he's cup-tied for FA Trophy games too. By all means let them off the leash against Braintree a week on Saturday. But when York pop along for the Trophy quarter-final this weekend, well... anyone remember Serge Makofo?

Simon Shaw has emailed the Diary on the vexed issue of why, despite heavy springtime fixture congestion, the Conference season still ends earlier and starts later than the Football League's. "I thought (though I have no evidence) that this was because when the league was founded, as the teams were part-time, then starting late would give them more time to get a team together whilst also avoiding holidays and cricket commitments and the like. It, at the least, sounds plausible," suggests Simon.

"However," he adds, "at the opposite extreme, it seems that the Conference also has delusions of grandeur. My team (Lincoln City) agreed to rearrange their game with Hayes & Yeading United on 28 February but Conference officials have since declined this request, stating that they won't reschedule fixtures during an England C international week." This, from the league that allegedly chose the Premier Sports TV deal ahead of an offer from the BBC...