Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Wednesday 30 January 2013

30 January 2013

So the tinpot club from North East Lincolnshire beat the giant-killers of Bedfordshire 3-0 to move into the semi-finals of the Mickey Mouse cup.

Using the universal formula created by romantic football fans to convince themselves that their team is better than it really is, the result last night actually makes the Mariners better than Manu and Arsenal. But, more importantly, it was a metaphorical two fingers in the face of Paul Buckle. And your West Yorkshire Diary likes that version more.

Buckle may have worn his 'meh' face when Marshall scored that third goal near the end, but we know it only disguised his utter fury and deepened further his hatred of all things Grimsby. How very satisfying.

Some Town fans suggested it wasn't the most fluent of performances, but having seen the highlights this morning I must say there's no flattery in the final score as far as I'm concerned. The pile of clean sheets is growing too.

Our potential opponents Halifax or Dartford play each other tonight at the Shay, with most Mariners hoping for a home win that will set up an intriguing two-legged semi-final - the first of which will be played at Blundell Park on Saturday 16 February. For fans of a certain age, like me, they'll have never seen us play Halifax.

The reserves host Mansfield this afternoon (2pm kick-off). It'll give some game time to the likes of Greg Pearson, Frankie Artus and Simon Ford. Oh, and Anthony Elding. He's still at the club, remember.

It was a good night all round, in fact, as Wrexham could only draw 2-2 at home to Southport, which meant they missed the chance to go top. Town remain there for now - and even though we've never been clear at the top, we seem to have spent a lot of time there now.

It's difficult to know how much pleasure to take from all of this, because the last thing we'd want to do is become over-confident and arrogant. For now you'll just have to put it down to being extremely cheery at the fact that, for the first time in ages, things just seem to feel right. The managers are winners, with two promotions on their CVs - and their player recruitment policy seems to be built on the same principle.

For the moment, these players look like winners. And they are winning, which helps.