Cod Almighty | Diary

It's been a good weekend

13 March 2017

Open Diary writes: This was a weekend on the road for Lincolnshire sides and Town will be back on the road again for a long-distance trek to Portsmouth on a Tuesday night. Sadly, work commitments prevent Open Diary from taking the trip to Fratton Park, but the fact that we've done well away to the top teams might leave some optimism about our getting a result.

Much of that optimism follows from the result on Saturday. A 3-0 win against a side that turned us over at home earlier in the season can't fail to impress. It looks a bit like we've found that successful formation we've been searching for since before Christmas and it's... err... well... called 4-4-2. You know that good old shape that us have been practising keeping for so long and which, forget the coaching manuals, the players have been comfortable with from the start.

Speaking of players, welcome back to captain Disley, and it can't just be a coincidence that we win when captain Disley is on the pitch. Mind you, let's not get too nostalgic because Sam Jones seems to be a good acquisition so things are on the up.

We also welcomed the Belgian Mariners from FC Aalst on Saturday. Last year they came to Dover and this year they ventured to the Orient. Next year hopefully they can see us at Gillingham? Having got to the magic 50 points, it won't be at Bromley or Maidstone United because we've done that consolidation thing that we would all have settled for at the start of the season. Now it's time to push on.

It's a long time since we've ended up with nothing to play for. After seasons of play-off adventures in the Conference and relegation battles in the second, third and fourth flights, it could be that 2016-17 could end in mid-table nothingness. C'mon Marcus, let's have a late run for the play-offs eh? Otherwise we'll have to start watching cricket and the like. There's not even an Olympics or a World Cup on the telly.

One thing we do have to watch is the progress of Cleethorpes Town, who drew the away leg of their FA Vase semi-final with Bromsgrove on Saturday. Isn't this what you're supposed to do in an away leg of a two-legged tie? Anyway, it's all to play for next Saturday so it would be great for them to get to Wembley for the final.

Hoping to join them will be Lincoln City, whose FA Cup adventure came to an end with a 5-0 defeat at Arsenal. That sounded bad until you watched Spurs – without Harry Kane – demolish Millwall 6-0 on Sunday afternoon, with even that guy Janssen getting on the scoresheet. Now Lincoln have to buckle down to the more mundane task of dealing with York City in the FA Trophy semi-final legs this week.

So, we could have two Lincolnshire clubs at Wembley on 21 May. Why shouldn't we look at making it a third a week later on 28 May?

Our oppo from Saturday have nothing so rosy to anticipate. Leyton Orient have little chance of being in the League next season and quite a large chance of no longer being in existence. Which will be a big loss. This is what football is evidently like these days: too many people with too much money and ego and too little real understanding of the game.

We, at least, have things to look forward to.