Cod Almighty | Diary

If we win, Paul Hurst won't be the greatest; if we lose he won't be the worst

7 October 2014

The only thing that will be proved tonight when Grimsby entertain Altrincham (if not the people who have come to watch them) is which of those two teams, on the night, score more goals. We have had years now of knowing that whatever squad of players we have, the Mariners are capable of a decent performance, or even a succession of them. We also know though that our good form is always temporary. There is always a Southport waiting to happen.

Your Middle-Aged Diary frankly does not know, looking at our most recent managers, whether they were might have had the wherewithal to make a go of it, if other things had been in place. Neil Woods was appointed with loud words about reforming the club's structure, but what he intended never became apparent. We also now know, or at least can infer, that he was more Mike Parker's appointment than John Fenty's. Talking of inference, if we leave those two sentences side by side without further comment, we can still draw a tentative conclusion, I suspect.

Paul Hurst, perhaps mindful of Woods's experience, does not feel in need of a vote of confidence. He has also decided, three days later, to answer the question John Tondeur put to him after the Dartford match about Scott Neilson (it really wasn't that hard, was it?). GCHQ reports details of a long phone call from the Crawley area to Mr Snippy's mobile, which they have indexed with the tags "Scott Neilson", "Terry Cooke" and "stick to beat you with".

Hope we enjoy the match tonight, and remember that, win, lose or draw, it will not all be the manager's fault.