The Diary

Cod Almighty | Diary

You can't make a living drawing dicks. This isn't France

23 February 2016

I went to Doncaster once, you know. I'm not really into racing though. So on my visit to Doncaster I didn't go to the racing. We can safely assume from this that Doncaster racecourse does not exist.

Good day, and welcome to Tuesday with your original/regular Diary. We're here to talk football. And football is a results business. The results don't lie. It's all about results. That's what we say after a result we don't like. After all the good results, it's just football, and not a results business at all.

With this in mind, Craig Disley has taken to Twitter to appeal for unity in the wake of the results we don't like and the anger that results from those, um, results. It's probably fair to say that the GTFC captain was missed even more than expected at Halifax last weekend as Town crashed to, well, the sort of crushing defeat that used to happen constantly for about ten years until Paul Hurst turned the club around and made a rod for his own back by lifting everyone's expectations off the floor.

Diz serves the second game of his suspension at home to Woking tonight.

In the end, I guess sometimes being the best supporter you can be just means accepting that your own support can't change very much in the end, and all you can do is keep going. We're not where we'd like to be; nor are the fans of Stockport County, Wrexham, Portsmouth, Swindon Town, Blackburn Rovers, Rangers, Manchester United and, in fact, most professional football clubs. As trite as it sounds, we wouldn't have started watching the football in the first place if it didn't have winners and losers. And the title might be out of reach but someone has to win the play-offs. And someone has to win the title and the play-offs next year, and the year after that.

When you pay a packet and travel all day, and the football's terrible, it's a big ask to be positive. But that's the proving ground for the best supporter. That's the small space available in which your support can make a difference. How will you use that space? Do you wanna be part of the problem or part of the solution?

Unusually, Mariners fans were offered another way to make a difference last summer when Operation Promotion rolled through town. As a supporter, Mariners Trust member, and contributor to Operation Promotion, I like to think the bit we chipped in will be helping somewhere. Somewhere in the social media underworld, however, there are rumblings to the contrary.

 

Susan Mullen, lest ye forget, is one of the couple who started investing their lottery winnings into GTFC just over a year ago. Her husband Lee went on to join the board of directors. Now, if there is an issue with the allocation of Operation Promotion funds, perhaps donors have a right to know. There must be better ways for this right to be addressed, however, than by a key financial backer of the club and partner of a director to be whispering about the supporters' trust on Facebook.

And lastly today, former Grimsby Town graduate Caine Winfarrah has rejoined Cleethorpes Town. Can you be a former graduate? Not unless you hand back your degree certificate in protest. With the atmosphere around the club these past few days, nothing would surprise me. But hey. UTM. Onwards and onwards.