Cod Almighty | Diary

It's all happening, but not here

23 January 2018

Don't read this.

Take the time instead to complete the 2018 Mariners Trust survey. It need only take a few minutes and it is your best chance to influence how Grimsby Town is run. The survey runs until 25 February but you know that if you put it off, thinking what you might want to say, you'll never get around to saying it at all.

You've already done the survey? You want to read about the team? OK. Barry Whittleton has been watching Town longer, and gets to more games, than nearly all of us. His thoughts on the current squad, and what our objectives should be for this transfer window, carry more weight than anything Middle-Aged Diary might say.

You don't come to Cod Almighty for proper football analysis? Quite right too. For the wider context of a club in its community, your port of call has to be this article on the Guardian website. I'll be honest and admit I haven't read it properly yet, but if it doesn't throw up all kinds of suggestive possibilities for you, I'll be astonished.

You want the wide world of football? Then let's take a moment to remember Jimmy Armfield, who died yesterday. He was before my time as a player but for decades he has been an avuncular presence on the radio. I can't remember who it was who said that sports commentators should think of themselves as sitting next to the listener; a friend, albeit one a bit more knowledgeable about the game. Armfield did that admirably, a man who clearly loved the game more than the sound of his own voice. Kirky's anecdote on the official site does not add an awful lot to our sense of him as a player, but it is a lovely portrait of an era.

Go read that.