Cod Almighty | Diary

A Grimsby fit for Darren Mansaram

24 July 2020

So Matt Green, a current Grimsby Town player, thinks that Ian Holloway, Grimsby Town's current manager - a man in whose plans Green hopes to figure - is good at his job. Middle-Aged Diary will refer you to the answer given by Mandy Rice-Davies and move on.

Not to Hull City. Let them grieve. "Interestingly" (as Steve Davis might have said), a good half century before the 1972 Local Government Act, matches between Town and Hull were described as Humberside derbies. They seem at least on Hull's part to have been quite good natured. Football was perhaps a bit less tribal then. Fans who could afford it might watch Hull one week, Grimsby the next, depending which first team had a home game. So if the news came through at Anlaby Road that Town were to be promoted, why wouldn't you cheer the prospect of watching Division One football next season.

So what can we write about? If you are on Twitter, you probably already follow Jim Connor and onthisGTFCday. Today they are linked by Darren Mansaram, who features in this clip. It is from our 2-2 draw at the Forest Ground in March 2003. The disappointment at the two points dropped to a late equaliser you can almost forget now. What you are left with is one of the great Town goals. Paul Groves finished it. Several Town players claim assists, among them John Oster, who dummies to set Mansaram free. He feints to cross and engineers an extra foot for himself so that he can finally turn and drag the ball across from the by-line for Groves.

Mansaram went on to have a long and varied career, none of it at the level of the second flight where he had made his debut. Dundalk have just become my favourite Irish club now I've learnt they used to sing his name to the tune of "Que sera sera". Before that, for Town he made 73 appearances over three years between 2002 and 2005, playing under Groves, Nicky Law and Russell Slade. Not a negligible career, and at a difficult time, but not the career he might have dreamed of, that we might have dreamed of for him.

If I was asked to name one player, above all others, who I wished had been a rip-roaring, unquestionable success at Blundell Park, it would be Darren Mansaram. Who would you go for?