Cod Almighty | Diary

New year's resolutions

3 January 2019

Open Diary writes: So it’s that time of year again. You know, too much indulgence over the festive period and then wondering how you can make up for it before the holidays come to an end. The place where I work doesn’t bother opening until next Monday when it’s all over, so that’s where my statutory public holiday days go now.

Unsurprisingly we had a bumper turnout on Tuesday. Just short of a thousand more turned out to see us play Mansfield than against Notts County a mere ten days before. What else was there to do after all, unless you worked for the emergency services or retain a shopping fetish? Or maybe people had done the online sales before going to the match?

Losing on Tuesday shouldn’t obscure the progress that has been made in the last couple of months. No longer are we waiting for the long run through the league tables until we get to the bottom end of the fourth division to find out how far from, or close to, the drop zone we are. Very soon we’ll be looking forward to the top half. Maybe even where that broken line shows the start of the play-off places.

I wonder what new year’s resolutions Michael Jolley might have made to keep things on the up. Presumably the first one is to keep building the squad in the transfer window. Forgotten and forgettable names have departed over recent weeks. Now we can feel relieved that Sunderland have done us a big favour with Elliot Embleton for the rest of the season and one of Jolley’s Swedish favourites has arrived to cover the stateside-bound Andrew Fox. Playing a settled team seems to pay dividends too.

Hopefully there’s another resolution to have confidence and give a chance to the youth products. One of the highlights of the season has been Harry Clifton securing a regular place in the starting eleven, and while I’ve not seen Mattie Pollock play he evidently did just as well when he had to step up to the mark. I don’t know about you but I’ve never understood why sides like Everton can successfully play their youth products in their first team and yet ours get discarded and end up in non-League football. If it’s a choice between academy graduates and over-the-hill journeymen, surely it’s a no-brainer which way to go?

Maybe there’s a third resolution about a realistic approach to a new stadium. Even if it’s a case of third time lucky? After 25 years of unfulfilled expectations it’s time to make some real progress. Great Coates has disappeared and Peakes Parkway has expired, so we need a project that can be realised. When Town started talking about a stadium at Great Coates I was working in a building in Maidstone, which is now the site of Maidstone United’s new ground. This was a club with no home, which had to be reformed after liquidation, so it must be possible to make this work.

My final resolution concerns Town's evident appearance on Soccer AM this coming Saturday. To the six who have put themselves forward for this: please don’t let us down. Read up your Grimsby Town trivia, get some decent replica kit – and for God’s sake make sure you can show Jimmy Bullard how to score a volley without falling over like the Forest fan last week.