Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Monday 26 March 2012

26 March 2012

Miss Guest Diary writes: So, a draw at Luton on Saturday. What does this mean for Town's play-off hopes? We are still four points off the last play-off spot but have slipped to ninth in the table and there is one game fewer to play.

I turned to my current favourite source of Town feedback to see what the mood was. It ranged from the confident "playoffs still alive" to the tentative "tell me the dream is still alive?" to the reality check from @CWilkes66 who pointed out that Town "have only won 1 game in 12 against the 8 teams above them in the league". He could also have added that, of the seven games left to play, four are against teams in the eight above us.

When I say Town's play-off hopes, I really mean the hopes of the Town fans. Recent interviews with the players and management have concentrated on the current games. I even seem to recall Shouty talking rather dismissively of the play-offs a couple of months ago, saying that the management's hope is to finish higher in the league than last season's ninth place. Hmm... let's see how that goes.

Meanwhile, Luton fans are not happy about conceding a late equaliser to Town. This report suggests there were chants of "Brabin out". Could the Grimsby Reaper be about to strike again?

The Telegraph continues its tradition of charting the fortunes of ex-Grimsby players with a report on yesterday's Football League Trophy final, which featured Jack Lester and Alan Connell. With his heroics for Chesterfield in recent seasons, Jack Lester always feels a bit like the great striker who got away. I decided to look up his career stats and discovered that, although he has a career strike rate of 0.26, he scored only 25 goals in 165 appearances for Town - a strike rate of just 0.15. Of course, there is no record of how many free kicks and penalties he won for us!

Out of interest, I also looked up Alan Connell and found that his overall career strike rate is exactly the same as Lester's, but his strike rate for Town was 0.54 - he definitely was the one who got away. Just for completeness, I calculated Liam Hearn's current strike rate: it is a staggering 0.74. I suspect that this time next season we will lamenting him as yet another one who got away.

Also in the news yesterday was former player and manager Paul Groves who has been appointed as caretaker manager of Bournemouth until the end of the season. He remains one of my all-time favourite Town players (career strike rate of 0.15 from midfield) and I really hope he does well. Good luck Paul.