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Diary - Thursday 19 April 2012

19 April 2012

Your original/regular Diary would like to begin by wishing you a happy Wayne Burnett Day. Fourteen years is both a long time and feels like yesterday.

Early in 2011 Grimsby Town reached an agreement to terminate the contract of an experienced goalkeeper with a handful of caps for a celtic nation who had latterly struggled to hold down a place in the GTFC side. Good riddance, muttered supporters. This week Town have done the same, but the fans seem a little more charitably disposed towards Kenny Arthur now than they were towards Nick Colgan then. A player probably still of Football League standard, Arthur was roundly criticised by many fans last season. Today he's being warmly wished all the best and thanked for his contribution to the club.

As is very often the case with Town supporters, then, absence from the team has made the heart grow fonder. In the mid-2000s, of course, the likes of Graham Hockless and Thomas Pinault became cult heroes simply by not playing. Latterly, many GTFC fans (your original/regular Diary included) have gazed wistfully across the Irish Sea dreaming of what a fully fit and firing Danny North might do for the Mariners in the Conference, having forgotten entirely the player's erstwhile 'lifestyle' issues. Perhaps a spell out of the team was all that was needed to rehabilitate players like Colgan in the affections of supporters, not to mention Peter Sweeney, Peter Beagrie and Scott McGarvey before him.

If West Yorkshire Diary was correct yesterday to state that the headline "Youths in action" might "attract the attention of the internet police", then heaven only knows what alarm bells will be ringing now. "Youths beaten" is today's offering from Town's superb new official website, the one-time Myspace Mariners having been despatched 2-0 by their counterparts from ovver the Umber in Ull. Dunno how the youth team feel about it, but I for one am delighted that they still play teams like King$ton Communication$ FC and Chesterfield. It means I can look at the youth fixture list once or twice a season, squint a bit, and pretend Town are still a proper football club.

The Grimsby Telewag today puts forward one of those statistical pieces that it runs now and again when there's not an awful lot of news to report. The research looks sound enough, and it's sure to be interesting to readers of a numerical bent. If you can't be arsed, the gist is basically: Town have scored more goals this season than in all those other seasons when they scored fewer goals.

Last up today, Matt Pakes has emailed to raise another statistical spectre. "I know we shouldn't be counting chickens and all that," he says, "but when was the last time we actually finished a season with the same managers we started with? (I don't count Slade, as he left about 85 minutes into the Cardiff match)." It's a fine question, Matt, and I hope Diary readers will email diary@codalmighty.com with some responses. "Still, there's a couple of games left yet for the old Fenty-Trigger-Finger to come into play!" adds Matt. Yes, counting chickens and all that. After all, Deadly John didn't Topcon the trust out of all those shares for nothing.