Cod Almighty | Diary

Comfort and joy

24 December 2018

Trentside Diary writes: An accomplished final home match of the year saw us "thrash" Notts County and that was the description used by 5Live on the wireless so it must be true.

Christmas is a strange time if you’re a footballer. Much of the rest of the country is overindulging in every possible way, meeting up with family and friends and doing their best to have a good time (or pretending to have a good time if it’s not really your thing). But if you’re a professional footballer you have an intense period of four matches in just over a week. So your focus probably isn’t on the festivities. There are occasionally calls for a winter break but I don’t think fans would ever want it. There’s something special about football over Christmas and the new year.

Well done to the Mariners Trust for their collection for a local foodbank before the match on Saturday. It’s heartbreaking that we should need to be collecting for foodbanks in the 21st century, in one of the richest countries in the world, but when the call comes football fans step up.

In football news, maybe having an intelligent manager seems to have rubbed off on Nunty. I was pleased to see that the club has stated that it voted against the inclusion of "category one" (ie first division academy) teams. The vote was lost and I’d like to see which teams voted in favour. I don’t think any fans believe they are playing a top-flight club and attendances have remained poor. With the Football League now streaming games at 3pm on a Saturday, having specifically stated in the past that they wouldn’t, I’ll never trust them not to bring B teams into the Football League, whatever they have said to the contrary – this is just the thin edge of the wedge.

Anyway, enough of the grumpy stuff, the Mariners are on the road to Port Vale and Exeter and heading towards the play-off places. This season is one for building but I can always dream.

Wishing season’s greetings to all Mariners, wherever you are. UTM!