Cod Almighty | Diary
We're gonna blow your Shatner's Bassoon
4 October 2019
Yesterday we asked you to name your favourite Grimsby goal of all time in a Football League match – preferably one scored at Blundell Park, and preferably one that looks beyond the obvious. Like when you’re asked to name your favourite album of all time, I’ve found it a difficult question to answer. Goals define matches, but they each come with a wider context and a deeper emotion than you see on the surface.
Ask me what my favourite album is while I’m feeling creative and I’ll probably say A Storm in Heaven by The Verve. Ask me again when I just want to lose myself in someone else’s melodrama and I’ll probably say Dog Man Star by Suede.
I do remember going ballistic when Bradley Allen scored our third of the first half in our home encounter with Crystal Palace in the 2001-02 season (it was the one after Michael Boulding weaved his way through the Eagles' defence). The game finished 5-2 and Allen’s goal – as scrappy as they come – put us 3-0 up just before the break.
It felt incredible. We looked relegated by the end of February but we’d showed signs of recovery. Beating Palace made us all believe, rather than hope, that the great escape was on – and we weren’t just beating Palace; we were blowing them away. A game is never won at 2-0, but at 3-0 it felt like job done. Hence the extra celebrations.
I could probably list about 20 goals that I’d considered my favourite, over the years. Even relatively recently, Jamille Matt’s header in the dying moments of our game against Notts County a couple of seasons back had me bouncing up and down in the Pontoon, grappling among others to find anything that would help steady myself in the chaos of the celebrations.
These goals weren’t spectacular by any means, but they came with a surge of emotion and a backstory that you find hard to replicate in other walks of life.
Sport, eh? It does something to you. Your West Yorkshire Diary can’t be friends with anyone who says they don’t like sport. In fact, I can't tolerate them. So many stories and moments; how can you not let them into your life?
And so to the next chapter of this season. Town start October in a play-off place and much to be rather pleased about. Jolley rotated the squad and called on youth and it did the trick down in Exeter. I think there are plenty of us who’d like to see a similar line-up at home to Mansfield tomorrow but the Stags aren’t flying at the top of the division and probably won’t come at us in the way a confident Grecians team did. I’d fully expect the likes of Hanson and Green to start, and if it’s not going to plan after 65 minutes then we bring on Max Wright and we win the game, basically.
A quick look at our head-to-head record shows that Mansfield have the edge on us, with 20 wins to our 18. Not since the days of Calum Dyson and Chris Clements have the Mariners got the better of Mansfield. The referee tomorrow will be Paul Marsden, a "preening pastel peeper" who didn't score well in Mr Butcher's match report from last season when the Mariners won 1-0 against the franchise – which included a red card for Harry Davis.
"He applied criminal sanctions for civil offences and needs retraining, if not being removed from the bench, for unconscious bias in sentencing," Mr Butcher continues. A summary, in two words? "Egregious berkery."
If there's one thing I'm not tolerant of – apart from those weird people who don't like sport – it's egregious berkery, especially from a referee. One of my work colleagues is a trained football official and, you know what? He's a berk. He claims he's not but, as we all know, only an egregious berk would deny their berkery.
Things feel good around the club at the moment. We've made excellent improvements on last season, as Paul Thundercliffe's latest article proves, and fans are, well, satisfied that we're moving in the right direction. Our social media channels have improved tenfold, we've got a cracking matchday programme, Kristine Green is back involved as an SLO and one of our local lads has once again been called up for international duty.
Football is much more than for 90 minutes on a Saturday. Get things right off the pitch, things will happen on it (just as long as some berk doesn't go and ruin it for us). Enjoy the match tomorrow and UTM!