Cod Almighty | Diary

Off the road

14 September 2016

Your original/regular Diary has often had cause to reflect on the one single moment, above all others, when one most strongly feels the passage from youth into maturity. For some people this might mean passing a driving test; for others, getting a first mortgage, or becoming a parent. For me it was the day Town released Justin Whittle and I became, for the first time, older than every player in the GTFC squad. The threshold was crossed. There would be no going back now. Bring me my bow of burning gold; bring me my slippers and hot water bottle, I fancy an early night.

Gnarled veteran Danny Collins (who is the best part of a decade my junior) will bring with him many things to Blundell Park – the most significant presumably being several years of Premier League experience and a dozen caps for Wales. But my interest has been piqued by an otherwise routine Grimsby Telegraph interview in which Collins has inadvertently let slip a potentially significant item of news.

"One or two offers came up of late and my agent told me that Grimsby had shown an interest," says the player. "We had a chat on Monday, agreed it all and drove across. Simple as that, really. The chairman spoke a few times to my agent, the manager called me and seemed really keen to get something done." GTFC fans will doubtless be looking forward to the club officially announcing the identity of its new chairman – unless of course Collins means John Fenty and the whole "I'm not the chairman, I'm the major shareholder" thing was just some sort of ruse to circumvent the constitution and avoid having to buy Mike Parker's shares or something. But I'm sure that's not true in any way.

From maturity back to youth, then, where big changes are AFOOT in Town's academy. New staff have arrived to run the place as the club gains Football League funding for player development. And for once the main criterion for being appointed as a coach in Town's youth system seems to be something other than having several years earlier been released as a player from Town's youth system. No, the deal for becoming GTFC academy staff is now consistent with the club's approach to player recruitment: you have to be ex-York City.

So it is, then, that Andy McMillan now manages the development of Town's youngsters, having resigned from a similar role at York a couple of months ago rather than reapply for his job and do a bunch of rotten admin work. Why let players join York City, wait for them to be released, and then sign them up for Town when you can just get the York City academy manager to develop them for you at GTFC? It's exactly this kind of progressive thinking that'll put our club on a more sustainable footing in the future.

McMillan's work will be helped by a proposed new crowdfunding campaign by the Mariners Trust, should it come to fruition. The trust is conducting a preliminary survey to gauge Town fans' readiness to support the campaign, so if you haven't already filled it in, head over and get it done while you're chewing that tuna mayo baguette, and don't look for a box that says "I will support the campaign conditionally on GTFC letting the next Dayle Southwell actually kick a ball" because there isn't one. A box, I mean, not the next Dayle Southwell. There are apparently several of those.

And finally today, tickets for Town's next massive away day are shifting like hot tickets. Season ticket holders have already taken 700 of the allocation for our trip to Mansfield a week on Saturday. Hmmm, massive away days – there's another thing that makes me feel old. Anyway, see you there. I'll be the one with the hearing aid and the packet of Werther's Original.