Cod Almighty | Diary

I am angry, I am ill and I'm as ugly as sin

2 July 2020

Making himself unpopular with Town fans yesterday was Grimsby Town chair Philip Day. He has added his name to those calling on the Football League to appeal against the two-point penalty awarded to Macclesfield which, if it stands, will mean that they, not Stevenage, remain in division four.

Frankly, the position is a mess. If Middle-Aged Diary thought the tribunal's calculation of the penalty to impose on Macclesfield was based on the offensiveness of Stevenage's stewarding, I'd happily go to the barricades to defend the Silkmen's right to not pay their players while remaining members of a professional league. Instead it was some quasi-judicial farce, a punishment calculated on some pseudo-logical scale when the fact is the decision was: do we relegate Macclesfield or not?

Wigan Athletic yesterday had a points penalty imposed for going into administration: it is unlikely they will be the last in the next few months. The League needs to sort itself out on this, and quickly.

Day has half a point when he says it seems illogical to punish Macclesfield for their financial problems by fining them. Except that this is sport as business we are talking about, sadly but inevitably. On a day when those charmers in the Premier League are contemplating imposing an entry fee for promoted clubs, it is impossible to ignore the financial implications for whichever club is sent down to the Conference next season.

All common sense - all common sense fortified by listening to Gary Bloody Neville droning his way through a top flight game the other night - says that the moment the lockdown began, all spectator sport should have been put in mothballs until it is once more safe for crowds to assemble. But this isn't spectator sport any more: it is spectator business. Trying to set a date to start the next season now makes little human sense, and not even much business sense if games will have to be played without paying spectators. When broadcasters are trying to pass their COVID-19 liabilities onto the Premier League, and the Premier League is looking at ways to pass on theirs to clubs less able to afford it, it is clear that coronavirus is far from being the sickest thing about society today.

Let's change the subject.

Strange how some players throw a shadow out of all proportion to what they actually achieved at Blundell Park. Ask a middle-aged Town fan to name the goalkeepers from before their time, and there's a fair chance the second they will list, after George Tweedy, is George Moulson. Moulson made just one league appearance for Town.

Ian Baraclough I remember well, although I doubt I ever saw him play. He was one of very few players from the early 1990s who we discarded whose subsequent playing career - with Lincoln, Notts County, Queens Park Rangers and Scunthorpe - suggests we maybe let a good one go. Looking him up the other day to confirm that he is the very same Ian Baraclough who has been appointed manager of Northern Ireland, I was surprised to read he actually only made five appearances for us, four of those while he was on loan.

Then there is Gary Harkins, who was signed by Graham Rodger in 2006 and played for us 17 times in 2006-07. Harkins has confirmed he has retired as a player after playing 14 years for almost as many different clubs in Scotland. Harkins has always made clear he did not get on with the Grimsby manager. He usually didn't name him but he can only have meant Alan Buckley and his wikipedia entry spills the beans. Thanks to Stephen Bierley for pointing out this interview with Harkins - if you are short of time, skip to paragraph seven. The story puts into the shade Scott McGarvey deliberately playing passes to Buckley's weaker foot in a reserve team game.

Making sure they stayed clear of Neil Woods' car, and carefully playing passes just as he liked them are Joe Starbuck, Duncan Idehen, Joe Hope and Cameron Painter. Congratulations to them on being offered professional contracts with Town, and good luck to those who did not graduate out of the youth team in bouncing back from the disappointment.