Cod Almighty | Diary

Emerging from the tunnel of blackness and hopelessness

1 February 2019

Sometimes, you don't know what you've got until it’s gone. Remember the feel-good factor that enveloped the club when we had away days at the likes of Alfreton, Welling and Woking? Travelling to quintessential non-League clubs, taking over their grounds, singing our songs and walking away with handsome victories as we pushed for the promotion we all craved.

And does anyone else feel embarrassed by how easily narked we got when a player like, say, Stacy Coldicott passed sideways instead of forwards as we fought gallantly and more than held our own against the likes of Manchester City, Sheffield United and Wolves?

Your West Yorkshire Diary doesn't want to live in the past. What's done is done. But what I don't like is fans accusing other fans of wanting to live in the past, just because they acknowledge the past.

The past, you see, is the best – and possibly only credible – way to gauge your current situation. Without it, how would we know if we were punching above or below our weight? How would we know the size of our pond, or the size of our fishiness?

Let's consider what we have right now. We have Football League status, and I'm not sure about you but I value that far more than I ever did before our six-year spell out of it. We're 15th in the fourth division. On the face of it, that's not good enough – certainly not if you grew up watching the Mariners during the Buckley years. But in the context of where we were last year, you could argue it's acceptable.

In case you need reminding of where we were this time last year, I’m going to share with you an excerpt from my own diary, towards the end of January 2018, which shares my emotions at our plight. (And no; not all diarists for Cod Almighty have to be diarists in their spare time.) We were 17th and the transfer window had just shut, locking in Slade's awful squad for the rest of the season:

On Saturday the mighty Mariners managed to lose their fourth consecutive home match to a side that was reduced to 10 men after 33 minutes. Luton might be top of the table but there is absolutely no excuse for falling behind after the red card and not working their keeper once in the second half. I learnt at a young age not to ridicule someone for their physical appearance but to be honest I've found it incredibly hard not to call Russell Slade a bald cunt like everyone else has on social media since the final whistle. I don't think Mike Newell was ever this unloved.

You'd think it'd take a monumental effort to make us so appalling that even I'd stop going to games – and you'd be right. Slade's made a monumental effort to give us a squad of nobodies playing awful football and giving us no entertainment. Supporting Grimsby Town stopped being fun last season – ironically the season we were all craving for; our first back in the Football League.

And today Stephen Folan, a player who Slade invited to train with us in the summer, told an Irish newspaper that he chose to join Dundalk over playing 'boomball' at Grimsby. By the sounds of it, he was totally underwhelmed by the tactics our manager had lined up for us this season and was surprised by the lack of depth and sophistication in his coaching.

Of course, Slade has denied that he was ever going to sign Folan, but if one man spent only five minutes at the club and realised we're shit, then spare a thought for us poor sods in the stands and at home, and imagine how we're feeling after suffering six months of it.

It's on such above emotions that the author and several contributors to the active Fishy thread 'Any optimism has gone' may like to reconsider their opinions. We were in a dark place 12 months ago – and although, on the face of it, we're currently a lower mid-table fourth division side, just as we were back then, there's definitely a sense that we're emerging from the tunnel of blackness and hopelessness that Slade took us into. That Jolley has brought down the average age of our squad so soon while keeping us stable and improving our style of play is a massive credit to him and his staff.

We're heading in the right direction. Things might still not be perfect, and we may all be bored looking up at Lincoln, Scunthorpe and Hull, but the foundations of better times are being built and I, for one, have the patience to see this through. We've been waiting 15 years to get back into the third division. A couple more won't hurt.

Grimsby Town have played tomorrow's visitors Newport County 13 times and it's the Exiles that hold a slender head-to-head advantage of four wins to three. Games between these two sides generally produce low-scoring affairs and nowhere is this more evident than our away record, which is an aggregate score of 1-5 from seven games.

Thankfully, our home record is much better and the aggregate score stands at 9-5 from six games. We've lost our last three against County and, of course, they have two players up front that each made a contribution to our current standing. One helped us achieve promotion with 37 goals and was then released, while the other generally contributed little until he headed in a 90th-minute winner against Notts County and, in that moment, confirmed our survival last season.

Not sure about you, but I'd argue that Pádraig Amond and Jamille Matt will provide a bigger test for our defence than Crystal Palace did in the FA Cup.

Likely to be included in our squad tomorrow is Kristian Dennis, who signed for the Mariners yesterday on loan from Notts County until the end of the season. Like Amond at Hartlepool, Dennis has been a good goalscorer in a desperately poor Chesterfield side, so there's evidence to suggest he's just as deadly in and around the box.

Newport, no doubt, will have one eye on their FA Cup home tie against Middlesbrough on Tuesday night – and half of the other eye will probably be on their potential opponents in the fifth round, Manchester City. So, while they're only dedicating half an eye on us, it seems the perfect opportunity to take advantage and stick a few past them while they’re not looking.

If only football was that simple. Or silly.

There’s been no news and no reaction to Jolley and Limbrick’s Q&A last night, as predicted by Casual Diary yesterday, but I'm sure the club will upload a YouTube video of the highlights just as soon as we’ve pressed the submit button on today's diary.

It’s been freezing cold lately, so let’s hope we're given a performance to warm our hands and hearts tomorrow. Genuinely, I don’t know which way this will go. Sadly, the referee will probably decide. I haven't checked to see which one we've got, but they're all rubbish aren't they? So let’s hope blindly that we get an absolute corker of a homer who gives us a penalty – and Dennis is a very capable replacement for Mitch Rose from 12 yards, I've heard.

UTM!