Cod Almighty | Diary

I walk in the rain with my second-hand suit on

7 June 2016

It's the close season – but promotion still tastes fresh in the mouth, like the minty flavour of your toothpaste while you're on the way to work. As the sun comes out and we look ahead to our first day back in the Football League, your original/regular Diary, naturally enough, has been thinking back to those stormy scenes on our last day in the 92, back at Burton Albion in 2010.

The memories aren't all bad. Mardy Diary and I discovered the best pub in the world. But it's hard to remember that day without remembering the violence. We apologised on behalf of all decent Grimbarians to the owner of a Burton garden shop who had looked on as a group of travelling supporters expressed their undying loyalty to GTFC and their awesome masculinity by smashing up some plant pots.

Then there was also the melancholy train ride home, when I chatted to some other Town fans. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad watching Town in the Conference, I suggested, because at least we might win a few games. It didn't matter, they said. They weren't going to go and watch a non-League football club.

I have mixed feelings about the prospect of these fans returning next season. I'm sure there'll be a few. On the one hand, their money will be more than welcome – and with it their contribution to Operation 3000, an excellently considered new Mariners Trust initiative to encourage that many season ticket sales. On the other, it's hard not to suspect that they'll be the first to turn on the team when all is not well. The more the wealthier, perhaps – but not, you suspect, the merrier.

And while it may be an unworthy sentiment, a part of me will resent the fact that the returnees will be enjoying the fruits of the effort that other fans continued to make in their absence. It's a bit like when you've been on strike and won a half decent pay rise, which is then duly trousered by your colleagues who crossed the picket line. We will try not to begrudge your sharing in the collective improvement in our conditions that we have achieved. But we would like you to stand with us the next time push comes to shove and your support could make a positive difference.

Now let's get down from my high horse so I can read this email from the trust. Alongside the launch of Operation 3000 they've released season ticket sales figures dating back to the last post-promotion season of 1998–99. These tell a story that's both remarkable and paradoxical – of both resilience and fickleness, and sometimes plain eccentricity.

Why did Town lose a third of all season ticket holders from 1999 to 2001? Were we really so cross with Alan Buckley for keeping us in the second flight?

How many season ticket holders, like the fans on the train home from Burton, opted out in 2010? Around 600 – or one in every four. Why did Town lose a third of all season ticket holders from 1999 to 2001? Were we really so cross with Alan Buckley for keeping us in the second flight? Why did we recover a quarter the season after? Were we really so excited about Lennie Lawrence?

There are huge positives too. It may not have seemed it at the time, but in terms of season ticket sales we were remarkably patient between 2004, when Town dropped to the fourth division, and 2010. The figure remained almost constant around 2,400. And how many did we shift last summer after losing the play-off final on penalties? A total of 2,658 – more than for any season since 2002–03, when the Mariners were three divisions higher. By any reckoning that's pretty magnificent.

One immediate benefit of Town's resumed Football League status is the restoration of external funding for the club's youth set-up. During our spell in non-League it was, of course, only the generosity of non-local fans in consenting to a 50p exile tax on ticket sales that kept the youth system alive at all. The pressure for immediate promotion every season meant a lack of first-team development opportunities for young prospects such as Dayle Southwell, which in turn prompted questions as to whether it was even worth having a youth set-up if the benefits of all the investment were only being reaped by Boston United.

Now we're back baby back, and Town "have approached the Football League with the proposal to operate a youth academy at Category 3 in line with the Elite Player Performance Plan", it says here. This will mean recruiting a number of new, highly qualified coaching staff, and anyone interested in these posts is urged to contact the club. So it's very encouraging to see a carefully considered, far-sighted long-term plan, with a view to developing a home-grown team on a financially sustainable basis, securing the future of the club for at least the next two decades. Let's just hope dozens of talented, UEFA-qualified coaches just happen to swing by the Grimsby Town FC website during the three and a half days between the job ad appearing and the application period closing.

In other news Town might sign some new players this week – and not just any players. The Grimsby Telegraph quotes goalie coach Andy Warrington to the effect that, although Paul Hurst has been on holiday, his phone remains very much on. Moreover, the recruits being targeted, we are told, are "hand-picked" players – as opposed, presumably, to the ones that agents pile into plastic bags with a big shovel and have funny green knobbly bits on the end. Let's apply the benefit of the doubt and assume it's not a reprise of the thing in 2008 when Alan Buckley was surprisingly said to be interested in signing Adebayo Akinfenwa from third division Northampton Town at the exact moment season tickets went on sale. See yers!