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Diary - Thursday 1 November 2012

1 November 2012

I always thought the best left-back outside the Football League was Jordi Alba.

Hello and welcome to Thursday's diary, brought to you by your original/regular Diary, one-time day-in day-out diarist for the Diary, from 2002 until it all became too much. Shorty and Shouty have moved reasonably quickly to reinforce their squad following the three-match ban incurred by Scott Neilson last weekend for being a silly boy. Marcus Marshall is a 23-year-old winger, previously of Rotherham United, who has joined the Mariners on loan from Bury for a month and will presumably make his debut away at Tamworth this Saturday. According to Wikipedia, Marshall made his first-team debut for Blackburn Rovers in that game when Town let Newey take it. So there's a nice circularity. I'm not sure which is the hardest to remember now: Simon Heslop, Luke McCarthy, or Town being eligible to play in the League Cup.

Literally three of you have emailed in response to West Yorkshire Diary's question here yesterday (inspired by that bonkers Arsenal/Reading game on Tuesday) about great GTFC comebacks. Chris Beeley writes: "I can't recall any three-goal or more comebacks, but my best memory is (I think) Town coming back from two down at half time to beat Barnsley 3-2 at home. Division Two, Easter '82, I was 14, I certainly recall Nigel Batch ran the length of the pitch at the end to celebrate in front of the Barnsley contingent in the Osmond having received some awful abuse when conceding their two goals at that end in the first half. According to my programme from that day, nearly 12,500 people were in the ground to see it. Nigel would probably be in court for doing such a thing these days but I was delighted. Hope other people remember this and smile about it as I do, or am I just remembering things that never really happened? Someone out there please tell me I'm not barmy!"

Well, David Tasker remembers the game too, but as to the scale of the comeback, we have a difference of opinion, Geoffrey. "I seem to recall watching Town at BP during the golden era of Waters, Moore, Drinkell, Ford et al coming back from a 3-0 half-time deficit to win 4-3 against Barnsley. I can't remember any scorers but associate this memory with Bobby Cummings [sic] - either a Cummings-inspired comeback or maybe I'm just making a connection between Bobby's fighting spirit and this particular Town fightback." If anyone else out there can recall the game in question, please email diary@codalmighty.com and share, and perhaps we'll find out whether it was 3-2 or 4-3.

But Michael Rushby has cited perhaps the comeback to trump them all: " September 1958, Lincoln v Grimsby - second division," he writes. "Lincoln led 4-0 with approximately 20 minutes remaining - final score 4-4. I think Ron Rafferty scored them all." Awesome. Thanks, all!