The Diary

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We're out of all that stuff now

3 March 2017

Retro Diary writes: The general tone of Tuesday night's rather underwhelming victory was happy but subdued. The crowd was small and quiet, only bursting into a little song in the final minute. The reason, of course, is that we're finally homing in on the conclusion that we can relax – we've done it. This team doesn't seem likely to go up, but more importantly, we're not going down. For us, this year, there will be no play-off excitement – it's someone else's turn for all that. Our season will peter out calmly at home to Plymouth on 6 May, after which we can sit back and enjoy the onrushing summer as a League football club. The sense of relief still hasn't started to subside, even now.

This weekend last year, Town beat Forest Green away 1-0 on the telly, with a captain Disley winner. How far we've come since then. A glance at the Conference table shows how different it could all have been. Wrexham – a club not so much smaller than ourselves – are tenth. Yes I know, still. Tranmere can't seem to get their act together and walk the division. Forest Green never seem to leave the top three but still can't escape the non-league mire. Lincoln would only need a modest non-winning streak to be facing play-off implosion.

And look down the other end to poor old Torquay – last Saturday they played Sutton at home. Having sacked "roly poly goalie" Wayne Shaw, Sutton lost their proper - and now only - keeper in the 16th minute to a backpeddling-related mishap and had to put a defender in the nets. They still beat the Gulls 3-2 to leave our Devon friends in a right relegation pickle.

How must Torquay fans be feeling. Fancy being threatened with relegation from a division containing a team who would bench a 45-year-old reserve keeper; one who couldn't be bothered to lose enough weight for semi-professional football; would risk letting his team-mates down in the biggest game of their lives by eating a pie with ten minutes of the game remaining; and who was so naïve as to not realise that what he was doing for a joke was a criminal offence. I reckon he could have been sacked three times for that one incident. But we're out of all that stuff now. Let's keep saying it; it's still true, every time.

Did I miss it, or has nobody mentioned that the reigning Premier League champions are being managed, albeit temporarily, by an ex-Town player? If that has ever happened before, I can't remember it. Even Graham Taylor's Aston Villa only came second. The circumstances under which Shakey took the reins, of course, were appalling, and have made Leicester the pariah of the division. Hell, I think I even want Hull to beat them tomorrow, although judging by Leicester's brilliant performance against Liverpool on Tuesday (which showed what shitsters they really are), it'll be a tall order.

Nobody these days believes the tired old cliche that footballers are thick. Education may have taken a back seat sometimes, but that could be because they've done nothing but play football all day from the age of four, and were earning a fortune while we were still wondering if we should drop out of A-levels. So prepare to be amazed, and feast your eyes on this gem, from Gary Lineker:


Lineker seems to have batted away claims that his closet erudition was a sham, and he was tipped off by his old English teacher. If this is the way football's going, I rather like it. Et tu, Gary. Have a crisp.

Tomorrow we're at home again as we entertain Wycombe. Although on Tuesday's showing, "entertain" might be putting it strongly. Chairboys is a particularly crap nickname (although Shrimps?) and one I would have difficulty rallying behind had I been brought up in the well-to-do Chilterns and not on the skint shores of the Humber estuary. Last time I went to Adams Park I saw Fern Britton waiting to enter the home turnstile, but not Bill Turnbull, an even more famous fan. Alan Parry is another chair, when he's not seeing Liverpool behind their backs.

Other celebrity fans in our division include Ade Edmondson (Exeter), Julian Lloyd-Webber (Leyton Orient), Ken Follett (Stevenage) and Paddy Ashdown (Yeovil). Last Tuesday's opponents Colchester, rather modestly, have Steve Lamacq – a season ticket holder since 1982 - but not Damon Albarn, who comes from there but fucked off to Chelsea.

So who have Town got? Does Wagner even count? I must say I haven't seen him queuing for the Main Stand bogs since that Tranmere game, and his version of Sing When We’re Fishing - although we thoroughly appreciated the sentiment - indicated that he probably hadn't heard it sung all that often. Adam Richman seems to be two-timing us with Spurs, but we'll take his crumbs which, let's face it, are more than most people can eat. Come on Lloyd, it might be down to you now.

This week's ground news is that the new homes set to be built as part of the Grimsby Town community stadium plan will "not necessarily" be constructed at the same site as the multi-million pound project. But isn't that what we've been s...? So why can't they b…? Oh never mind.

This week we're a bit spoilt for Bignotisms, but I rather liked "I believe since we walked through the door we've been turning corners and walking through doors and shutting doors behind us and moving on". What it means I have no idea, but at least we've found where they keep the cleaning products.

For us, Sean McAllister has a niggle, and Jamey Osborne plays on despite the catch-all diagnosis of shin splints, but the rest are OK.
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