Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Monday 22 October 2012

22 October 2012

Miss Guest Diary writes: Oh well, I consoled myself after Saturday's miserable defeat, at least there'll be a football-free weekend coming up. I might even manage to drag my partner to a local craft fair I've had my eye on. But what has the club done? It's brought forward the away game against Tamworth which was originally scheduled for a Tuesday in February.

Just when I think I've got used to Town being non-League, they do something like this. I met a Spurs fan last week who commiserated with me on Town's current status and I told him, quite truthfully, that it's mostly OK - we are where we are and want the same things for our team as any other fan. But then they go and bring forward a fixture by three months to fill a blank Saturday. It just seems so, well... amateurish.

As is often the case after a rotten result, it was the shorter of Town's management duo who had the task of speaking to the press about what he called "the nightmare of the FA Cup". I won't bore you with the details. The only thing of interest in the interview was news that Aswad Thomas - sorely missed on Saturday - was not simply being rested but has an ankle injury. With Craig Disley also now injured, that doesn't bode well for next Saturday's game against Macclesfield.

I noticed in the Grimsby Telegraph at the weekend that the proposed new stadium has failed to secure the £1 million funding from the Regional Growth Fund for which the club put in a bid. Unfortunately, according to John Fenty, this will not stop the project going ahead but it will affect the "design and scale" of the stadium. Mmm, does that mean we could end up with something like Telford - a dozen concrete steps behind the goal and a hotel built into one side?

While unsuccessfully searching the Telegraph site for more details of Town's funding bid, I came across an article from earlier this year about what was happening in the area ten years ago. It contained this gem: "Grimsby Town will survive - despite losing more than half of its income because of the collapse of ITV Digital. That was the message from club chairman Peter Furneaux, who stressed the Mariners' proposed £14 million stadium near Great Coates would also go ahead as planned."

You've got to laugh, haven't you.