Cod Almighty | Diary

Hard times

3 July 2020

In a week when many pubs seem to be acting with more common sense than the government, these are sobering days.

Hard to know what best to do when the future is so uncertain. "We are all in the same boat", the saying goes, but it's a poor image. It is more as though many are trying to keep themselves afloat on a stormy sea, and navigate a way to the best harbour, but each is in their own individual boat. They can radio for help, for company or for solidarity, but the decisions they must make - if indeed they even have a choice - are personal, the ones that wake you in the small hours.

The websites and news sources are still churning out the same transfer speculation as though it was any other close season. But for clubs it is not, and for players it is not. The game, when it returns, will be that little bit the poorer. Some players, still with a lot to give, will have decided, or will have had it decided for them, that they cannot afford to wait and see. Others, their talent unproven, will find no doors open for them.

Of the three players with whom Town had an option, the word from BBC Humberside is that Billy Clarke wants to keep his own options open. Talks are continuing with Charles Vernam and Max Wright, the talks with Wright the most advanced. Middle-Aged Diary hopes we will still see them in Grimsby's stripes. Failing that, I hope at least they will be lining up for someone, some day.