Cod Almighty | Diary

We should maybe aim for not bad

7 May 2019

Wrong-footed by the bank holiday, your original/regular Diary was just wondering exactly whose words were scheduled to be pasted into this space today, only to realise that the camera was zooming in fast on my own panic-stricken chops. It's a bit like the BBC on general election night in 1987 when David Dimbleby was caught by surprise on camera in the middle of eating a Mars bar. Except this is 2019 and I'm having smoked tofu with rocket, tomato and mayo on a nice chewy sourdough. It'll probably be 2087 before you can buy that in Grimsby.

Soooooo, it's so long and thanks for all the fish to Danny Collins, Martyn Woolford, Jonathan Hooper and Wes Thomas – one of Paul Hurst's signings, two of Russell Slade's, and one of Michael Jolley's. Collins is clearly clapped out now, but has lent Town some stability through the whirligig of comings and goings that enveloped the club after our return to the Football League in 2016. Woolford, too, proved a decent signing and a steadying influence after switching into central midfield, who never set the world alight but made a useful contribution. Respect is due and our best wishes go with both.

The hat-trick with which Hooper signed off the 2017-18 campaign – including, as it did, a couple of right pearlers – confirmed suspicions that there was a player in there somewhere, as indeed has his excellent goalscoring record on loan this season at Bromley. There can be little doubt that the charges of laziness from some sections of GTFC support would not have been brought quite so readily to a white player. At the same time, he had plenty of game time in the first half of the season just ended, and for all his efforts we saw insufficient end product for the manager to persist any further. Again, good luck to the lad.

Thomas, despite also receiving dubious accusations of laziness, clearly was good enough for the fourth division, and his excellent positional sense helped him to slot neatly in to a GTFC team struggling both for firepower and cohesive linky-uppy stuff in attack. His decisions to go public on the dressing-room row with Jolley which prematurely ended his season, and to celebrate the end of his association with the club on social media, however, show an unpleasant lack of class, and he can go sulk with Colchester for all we care.

We'll miss his goals though, won't we, eh? How Jolley will address this, in terms of both his new signings and the tactics deployed to make them play, is the subject of a new piece on CA this week by Ron Counte, which I strongly recommend a look at.

So, what about next season? Well, in turn, the funding available to Jolley as he turns his attention to signings and tactics is the subject of a more than usually worthwhile thread on the Fishy messageboard – in which our club's infamous non-chairman pops up to defend his financial record only to be owned in fairly comprehensive style. If you liked Stephen Marley telling you to "shut up", you'll love John Fenty telling you to "give it a rest". Read it now before it gets deleted.