Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Thursday 4 April 2013

4 April 2013

What was the most pleasing aspect of last night's 3-1 win at Macclesfield?

To the utilitarians, those of the "It's a results business" philosophy who presumably don't bother watching the matches but study the tables like so many brokers viewing stocks and shares, it was undoubtedly taking advantage of our game in hand to open up a seven-point advantage on Forest Green in the competition for the last play-off place. Your Middle-Aged Diary started to write "Even the most superstitious of Town fans is now..." but then realised it was not a forecast I am prepared to put in black and white. Let's risk "Most rational observers will have the Mariners as favourites to finish in the top five."

Certainly the board at Macclesfield seem to have come to a very quick conclusion about their prospects of overhauling us. Club historians will be welcoming a return to form for the Grimsby Reaper, following the dismissal of Steve King as manager of the Silkmen within an hour or two of full time. Harsh maybe, but without intruding too much on the forthcoming match report, Macclesfield looked like a dodgy Football League side, while we looked like a decent Conference team. As we learnt in our first season in this league, there was only going to be one winner.

The pure football enthusiasts will not have been purring last night. They will, however, take satisfaction that we ended the match far stronger than we began it, helped by a change in formation which put pressure on Macclesfield's brittle defence, leading directly to our decisive third goal, and even enabling us to play a bit of keep-ball during injury time. Those who like to sermonise will have enjoyed the team spirit marked by the mass goal celebrations and Frankie Artus's distinct reluctance, as the ball trickled towards the line, to tap in that third goal, for which the credit belonged with Andy Cook and Joe Colbeck (he may of course just have been worried he was offside).

However, for fully rounded human beings, who enjoy football for a whole number of intangible reasons, the thing we will remember when all else is forgotten is the cat. Emerging from near our left corner midway through the first half, it sprinted (I regret the impersonal "it", but the cat was moving too quickly to judge whether it was a he or she) along the touchline, tacking first infield then out again, with some kinks in its direction before disappearing at the other end. It had no bearing on the result and the football purists will have been disappointed at the lack of end product, but the club historians will surely have been reminded irresistibly of those matches in which we were forced to play Mark Smith at left-back.