The Diary

Cod Almighty | Diary

The once and future managers

20 April 2018

Unfortunately Wicklow Diary's colleagues have lost the memo telling them that civilisation in the east of England depends on his Friday lunchtimes being kept free, so you have an emergency dose of Middle-Aged Diary today.

Allow me a moment of introspection. Once upon a time, all Cod Almighty diaries - and we ran them on Saturdays as well back in the day - were the work of one person. Regular/original Diary is the first to admit they were somewhat less ambitious in scale and scope when we began. Guest Diary, who offered a reprise last week after a six-year absence, began to give Friday's diary a special tone and breadth. And Retro Diary stepped into that wider remit quite brilliantly.

If you still miss his writing, and don't mind if he isn't writing about football - Bill himself is at pains to avoid overselling - you may want to check this out.

Back to the Mariners, and the i newspaper has a very good interview with Michael Jolley, drawing out what from his City background he might be bringing to Blundell Park. You'll be relieved to read that "you get the odd person who’s got neither talent nor attitude and doesn’t last very long. Thankfully we haven’t got any of those at Grimsby" and intrigued as to what the future might hold when he is able to plan for the future.

A battle of the Towns tomorrow, as we travel to Swindon, a team who ended a run of four draws with defeat at Newport last Saturday. In short the match does not look quite as hopeless a lost cause as our respective league positions might suggest. A Grimsby win and defeats for Chesterfield and Barnet could make us safe bar points deductions. Despite Podge Amond promising to do what he can for us at the Hive, that is not the most likely set of results. So if things don't go quite as we'd like tomorrow, let's try and avoid a collective meltdown at 4.50.

In the circumstance that, with two games to play, we are two points above the relegation zone, ask yourself: what would Alan Buckley do? The odd broken tea cup no doubt, but then a focus on doing whatever we need to do to get a result in the next game.

It is the great man's birthday today. Knowing he is not a frequent drinker, I have no idea how he plans to celebrate, except that he definitely won't be reading Cod Almighty. The day has caught me unawares. Why is it not a national holiday? Why don't we have advent calendars leading up to the day itself, with the faces of a selection of the players he not only signed but made better footballers - Cockerill, Childs, Gilbert, Alexander, Rees, Mendonca, Donovan, ..., ... - behind every window.

Alan Buckley never went out of his way to be a crowd pleaser: he left that to the teams he put out and the way they played. Happy Birthday Mr Buckley.