Cod Almighty | Diary
Pulling a sickie, off to the Hagia Sophia
30 July 2015
Questions. Always the questions. What actually took place that led to the sackings of Mike Newell and Rob Scott? What happened to that working group headed by GTFC director Stephen Marley to seek out investment to plug the £16milion gap in the Fentydome funding, which was supposed to report back with its findings at the end of June? And now… what the chuffing heck is going on with Omar Bogle?
It's been a good close-season for Town in several ways, what with Pearson staying, the fans' whipround, and the decent run of friendly results. The Grimsby Telegraph tells us that Scott Brown and Gregor Robertson, who have missed most of the current kickarounds, have returned to light training. But there is no word at all about the Mariners' marquee summer signing.
Bogle is variously rumoured to have cost 50 to 80 thousand of your crowdfunded English pounds in transfer fee – before we even get to his three-year contract. And he has played approximately six minutes of Town's eight pre-season friendlies so far (your original/regular Diary did waste half an hour last night trying to calculate the exact figure before realising there were greater high-octane thrills to be had watching All Aboard! The Canal Trip instead).
Ought we to be just a teensy bit concerned given the above? Dunno. Probably not, if we're honest. The most recent thing I can find is from five days ago, about a knee injury keeping Bogle out of the Notts County game last week. But Hurstses reckoned it wasn't very serious, and hey, we've got loads of other prolific strikers. In all likelihood I'm just looking for things to worry about because everything seems to be going so well.
In fairness to the lad Diary, even the jauntiest-minded of the club's supporters would have to admit that Grimsby Town FC do have just a smattering of previous in letting you down. Something always goes wrong. You somehow find yourself watching a sublimely talented Italian former European Cup finalist playing for Grimsby, and just as Town are approaching the top spots in the second division, that plate of chicken legs becomes a weapon, there's a massive punch-up, and you embark on a sequence of relegations in a horrifying slow-motion collapse culminating in relegation to the fifth tier for the first time in your 135-year history.
By that token, I wasn't too devastated when Town lost that shootout in north-west London a few weeks ago, because my mind wouldn't let me believe we would win it. I wanted to. The eagerness and agony of dashed hope are still a hundred times better than feeling nothing. But my mind wouldn't let me. Not because Town's players are worse at penalties than Bristol Rovers'. Just because I'm habituated to failure.
"My brain's rebelled. It just won't accept nice things happening to me. It just keeps fantasising horribleness."
Nice things just don't happen to us. Except that time Steve Evans was thrown out of Blundell Park by the police. That was bloody ace, that was.
But look. Hurstses still reckons it's not very serious. Look. "It's a strange one, because there doesn't appear to be much wrong – but he's not feeling quite right." Alright, it's not the most comforting of reassurances. But it'll be fine, won't it.
That just leaves the other questions. What actually took place that led to the sackings of Mike Newell and Rob Scott? And what has happened to that working group headed by GTFC director Stephen Marley to seek out investment to plug the £16milion gap in the Fentydome funding, which was supposed to report back with its findings at the end of June?