Cod Almighty | Diary

Lord make me forward-looking, but not yet

6 May 2014

For Town supporters, it is still a bit too early to start looking forward. It still feels like someone has flung a bucket of cold water at us.

Spare a thought for those who make a living from the game, wondering where, indeed if, they will be playing in August. With the uncertainty of the club's status so abruptly resolved, they don't have much time for wallowing. Paul Hurst, in his desire for stability amid a precarious situation seems to your Middle-Aged Diary to be making exactly the right noises. Although elsewhere, I hope he is being a bit more self-critical, a bit more analytical, in private, than to put our play-off defeat down to an admittedly appalling refereeing decision.

That mixed review epitomises my general feeling about Hurst. My uninformed view puts me in complete agreement with the tone and the conclusion of yesterday's blog from All That and a Bag of Chips: he may not be great but he's good, he's got the potential to be better, and he's ours. My only question is why those views should be considered controversial, unless those calling for his removal know something the rest of us do not (Has Alan Buckley been taking a ride in a Delorean sports car with Michael J. Fox again?).

As fans, we are still allowed to wallow, so let's wallow. Kicking through the leaves yesterday, it occurred to me to start composing a team of our best players since our defeat in the League Trophy Final in March 2008, taking in our last two full seasons in the Football League and everything since. The cut-off deprives us of the services of John McDermott but not Ryan Bennett. One other rule: rather than worrying about whether a player is on loan or on a short-term contract, let's say all players named must have made at least 15 appearances for Grimsby.

Given the loss of League status and the perception of under-achievement since, there is a fair bit of competition. In goal, we needn't look much past James McKeown. Up-front we have Jean-Louis Akpa Akpro, Alan O'Connell and Liam Hearn, among others, to choose from. If you squint, you can imagine that the excitement of watching Peter Bore and Aswad Thomas bombing forward on a good day would make the other days worth enduring. Even without Bennett, we would not be short of reliable central defenders: Justin Whittle, Ian Miller and Shaun Pearson are the first to come to mind. To accompany Michael Coulson on the wing, there are some decent, if sometimes fitful, options, but it might be significant that candidates in central midfield are thinner on the ground.

This is a theme to which we'll return, so please send in your suggestions. In the meantime though, I will suggest that six years in which we have had players of the presence of those named above may have been frustrating but they have not been devoid of pleasure.