Cod Almighty | Diary

All in one rhythm

19 May 2014

Miss Guest Diary writes: Two images have burned themselves into my brain from Saturday's game at Wembley: a grown man with his face painted like a tiger and the photo that Grimsby's own John Tondeur tweeted of himself in a Hull City shirt. I'm not sure which was worse, but both made me feel queasy. At least the result went the right way.

And yesterday's Wembley game also had the right result in my opinion. I had nothing against Gateshead until the play-off semis, when they turned out to be a bunch of divers, especially in relation to the Neilson sending-off incident. I was pleased that Cambridge won yesterday, not just to spite Gateshead, but also because Cambridge look like a much better all-round side and would likely pose a greater threat to Town's promotion hopes next season.

But what a shame about Ian Miller's injury – a ruptured Achilles tendon which he reckons might keep him from playing for up to nine months. Not an encouraging prospect for a 30-year-old.

Now at least we know the full roster of teams Town will be facing next season which, incidentally, starts on 9 August. Only 11 weeks to go... and, if I'm reading the Cod Almighty contract tracker correctly, only 11 players on the books. But it was good news on Friday when Jamie Mack signed up for another two years, and gave a very touching interview about his rapport with the Town fans. Now Hurst needs to convince Thanoj, Doig and Neilson to take up the options on their contracts and we have the basis of a good squad on which he can build.

But before all that angst kicks in, we have the delights of the World Cup to look forward to. It's less than three weeks till it kicks off and I haven't got my World Cup wallchart yet. Can anyone recommend a good one? Yes, I know there'll be dozens of apps out there on which to track the results, but there's nothing so satisfying as pinning up the chart and filling the results in by hand. Especially when it gets to the second round and you have to work out who the winner of each group is to enter them on the 'winner of group D will play runner-up of group C' bit. Ooh, I can't wait.

I'm just thinking back to those images I mentioned earlier and I've decided the one of John Tondeur was definitely worse. How could he?