Cod Almighty | Diary
Strike a light
24 May 2016
The dancing is done. Nearly everyone's sleeping. There's at least one red wine stain on a carpet and a broken Radiohead CD in a plant pot. As the harsh first light of dawn squeezes between the curtains, Chris Doig is up and about, putting all the empties in a black bin bag. Paul Hurst will soon be on his feet, rustling up a fry-up for the bleary-eyed guests who are sticking around, while others will be out on an early train. Promotion season is over, the retained list is being announced, and the Telewag and the SNOS are queueing up to flatter the Cod Almighty contract tracker.
If your original/regular Diary were minded to continue this analogy, I would follow our first departure of the day up to the spare bedroom, where he extracts his jacket from the pile of coats on top of the two slumbering guests who finally copped off together at about quarter to two in the morning after so ridiculously long a flirtatious preamble that most observers had given up expecting any action some time before midnight.
This would get in the way, though, of a fond farewell to Jon-Paul Pittman, who appears to be looking for a new club after two respectable seasons with GTFC. The 29-year-old forward will leave with the respect of all right-thinking Town fans and 19 goals to his name in black and white stripes. It's probably fair to say we understand Hurst's decision-making given the player's proneness to injury, while we applaud his talent and the useful contribution he's made to the rebirth of our club. Thanks and good luck, JP.
Westward to Derbyshire, where the Derbyshire Times carries a nice interview with Craig Clay – a graduate of the youth set-up at Chesterfield, lest we forget. The Town midfielder speaks of his unhappy few months as a part-time footballer between his release by York in January 2014 and Paul Hurst's decision to take a chance on him the following summer. While playing for Worksop, it emerges, Clay worked as an electrician with his brother – and yearned for a return to full-time football because "I think I realised I couldn't handle a proper job". You and me both, Craig – you and me both.
Unsurprisingly, Clay declares himself excited by Town's return to the Football League. Slightly more surprisingly, the piece makes no mention of Clay's out-of-contract status. Displaced from the starting line-up by the excellent Jon Nolan, there is sadly some possibility that if Clay's excitement is to be realised with the resumption of his status as a Football League player, it might not be with the Mariners. That's the elephant in the Derbyshire Times' room, and those are the tough calls yer man Hurst needs to make. Maybe he'll get a new deal – he's only 24 and young enough to develop more.
That's about your lot for now as far as current Grimsby players are concerned, though if we stay long enough in Derbyshire we might find something about Liam Hearn. Ah, here you go. Released by Lincoln City, the former Town favourite has accepted an offer to join Paul Hurst's old club Ilkeston in a player-coach role. It's nice to see Hearn given a chance to take a first step towards fulfilling his managerial ambitions. It'll also be nice to see if he can stay fit and tear the Northern Premier League a new one. I for one am relieved there's no danger of GTFC coming up against him in the FA Trophy. See you next time.