Cod Almighty | Diary

Peachy clean jellybean

28 August 2014

Grimsby Town fans were euphoric when one-time goalscoring superstar hero Alan Connell returned to the club for the start of this season. Just three weeks later we're looking at the most disappointing comeback since the second Stone Roses album. Shut up, it's still rubbish. So while your original/regular Diary is more than pleased to record that we have another month of Andrew Boyce, yer man Connell has left the building.

Was he unfit? Was he unmotivated? Was it one of those tactics things that football people talk about? Or was he just resolutely unimpressed by the new Top Town bus station? Whatever the reasons, the underwhelming return of a player who is now rapidly approaching journeyman status wasn't long enough to besmirch the glorious memories of his 29-goal season back in whenever it was. But it supports the old adage that you should never go back, except that one time we did and it worked.

So Boyce is here for another month, at least, and Doigy is purring about the Town defence that the Plucky Scunny loanee has played no small part in strengthening. The Mariners' backline isn't just looking like the strongest in the Conference, he reckons – it's good enough to do alright in the Football League. "It wouldn't faze me being a manager and going into [the fourth division] with them as my defenders, not at all," Doigy tells the Grimmo Telegraph today. Well, yep. If only we could have said the same about the defenders we had last time we were in the fourth division.

I will leave you with a new Cod Almighty feature called Theme Team. Our current edition of Theme Team highlights a Physical Phenomena XI – nominated by CA readers and composed of Town players down the years who have been very tall, very fierce, very fast, or just plain gangly. I'll tell you now that there was room in the XI for Tony Crane's arse – which no-one has ever said before in any circumstances – but you'll have to find out the rest for yourself.

The next Theme Team will be a Useless but Popular XI, so if you'd like to nominate someone other than Tony Gallimore for that, use the feedback form. Cheers!