Cod Almighty | Diary

David can beat Goliath and teenagers can play for Town

9 May 2019

It would be an injustice to the game of football not to talk about the last two nights in the European Cup. In case you missed it, Liverpool and Tottenham overhauled three-goal aggregate deficits against Barcelona and Ajax respectively to book themselves a place in the final.

Admittedly, Basque Diary finds Liverpool and Spurs fans annoying at the best of times. They will no doubt harp on about these nights until the end of time (and as Ron Counte writes, it is not as though we have not had our own moments). Having said that, both games were fantastically unpredictable, which is one of the main reasons most people like football. David can beat Goliath. The best teams do unexpectedly collapse, and the unthinkable will happen before your very eyes.

Yesterday's diary talked about the mundanity of our own 2018-19 season, despite its inconsistencies. Even though our season was a bit of a damp squib in the end, I actually enjoyed quite a bit of it. We had some cracking wins and played some decent stuff at times. It's those scraps that feed our hunger for more and keep us coming back for more. Even if season ticket sales seem difficult to simplify.

The other great comeback on our radar is the return of youth to Grimsby Town. Our under-18s recently grabbed the North East Youth Alliance title and several youth team graduates have been given professional terms in the last year or so – Harry Clifton, Max Wright, Mattie Pollock, Ollie Battersby, and now Jock Curran and teammates.

Our last few squads in the end-of-season run-in featured up to five current or former youth teamers in the starting XI. The great 1997-98 squad featured a similar number: Daryl Clare, Danny Butterfield, Jack Lester and John McDermott.

Our budget seems to be reduced year on year, as do our chances of ever reaching the big time again, but if we can produce a team that is made up of talent we've produced, that might be able to make a push for the play-offs, I can live with that.