Cod Almighty | Diary

"WE didn't give up when we were 15 points off the top, so we're not going to because we're three adrift now." (Craig Disley)

7 April 2015

To love is to fear, as Graham Greene didn't quite write at the end of The Ministry of Fear. After this weekend, we all know what he meant. Hope, fear and love are so entwined.

Middle-aged Diary is long past such things, but supporting Grimsby through this promotion race is reviving the emotions of the early stages of an adolescent love affair. You have fallen heavily for someone, but you are not sure how they feel and how it will all turn out. He or she is never out of your thoughts. Every meeting with that person, every trace of that person is freighted with significance, giving rise by turns to the most inflated optimism and the most leaden gloom. You are not yourself. When you are with them, you desperately want to be at your very best, but love has struck you dumb.

Following Town's matches on the social media, extreme emotions are there in black and white. Yesterday, Paul Hurst made a few reasonable team changes, no doubt to manage the fitness and readiness of his squad. I can say that after the event, and I only glanced at the Fishy's match thread after the final score was known. It was the exaggerated fears of love yelling off the page when Hurst was accused of giving up on automatic promotion by resting Olly Palmer.

If you are at Blundell Park next Saturday or on 25 April, if you are at Southport on 18 April, we need you at your best. Don't let the setback of an unexpected selection, a near miss, a goal against us strike you dumb. Turn telepathy into chants. If the mental waves emanating from near radio sets and laptops and mobiles were turned into noise, then the whole country would know that Town fans are falling back in love with their team.

We've agreed with the Mariners Trust that polling on the Great Grimsby XI will be extended until 17 April, so that if you (or your friends and relatives) attend the Wrexham game or the Graham Taylor night, you'll be able to vote there. Among the duties attendant on the poll is pointing out to voters that players from after the 2001-02 season are not eligible. Usually, that's Georges Santos, Ryan Bennett, Michael Reddy or Rob Jones I have to reject.

This weekend – by dint of guts, by dint of that willingness to rise to the challenge, to embrace the weight of our expectation – a new group of players are making their claim to belong to the gallery of great Grimsby teams.