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Diary - Tuesday 9 April 2013

9 April 2013

Middle-Aged Diary was touched to read of the life of Peter Laverick in today's Telegraph. I had not heard of the former Town player, but, his career cut short by injury, he devoted much of the rest of his life to managing local amateur and junior sides, encouraging his charges to take part in and enjoy the sport he loved. What a fine way to be remembered, enriching the lives of those who knew him; not denying but enhancing society.

Let's move on.

James Devitt's return to Blundell Park is unfortunately tilting towards the Aidan Davison rather than the Matt Tees end of the scale of triumphant returns. Sent off in yesterday's 5-2 reserve defeat against Morecambe, he will now be unavailable for three matches, leaving the play-offs as almost his last chance of making a positive impact on our season. Initial reports in the twittersphere suggested the sending-off was harsh but the SNOS reports that he was "clearly seen to kick out at an opponent". More encouraging was the additional match time Liam Hearn got under his belt, and Andi Thanoj appears to have had a good game, orchestrating many of our chances.

Thanoj's presence yesterday suggests he is unlikely to feature tonight at Dartford. Rob Scott hopes Craig Disley and Derek Niven will both be available, along with Shaun Pearson who "has a problem in the hip area". This is presumed to be an injury, but it is possible that Shouty is cryptically alerting us to some personal issues facing the central defender in Greenwich Village or feels that he has a tendency to be caught square.

Tonight's game is the first of three away from Blundell Park, with Paul Hurst having suggested after Saturday that this might be to the team's benefit. The tendency of some Mariners to declare themselves the "best fans in non-League" to me has a nasty echo of some minority behaviours from the late 80s and 90s: remonstrations by stewards or the police after some asinine stunt provoking a chant "Loyal supporters".

Good support is about quality, not just quantity. I would rather be in a small crowd getting behind the team, expressing their reservations after the event, than a large crowd booing the team, or indeed the Welsh national anthem. It happens that the last crowds I was in were exemplary, rising in song when Stockport were pressing for an equaliser and making the referee at Macclesfield aware of his fallibilities with sarcastic good humour. Whether we are the best, I don't know, but no-one reading this needs telling that this is the best contribution we can make to getting the Mariners through the play-offs.