Cod Almighty | Diary

Groove is in the heart

21 July 2022

The new season and return of GTFC to the Football League is now slightly over a week away.  Yesterday's West Yorkshire Diary covered season ticket sales and the Lincoln friendly, leaving your Glass Half Full Diary here attempting to locate other newer Mariners news.  In the holiday season, as schools break up, as the first team squad pack their bags for a mini-break to Tenerife. Hmmm, and I can't think of a Mariners angle to link the England victory over Spain in the women's Euros Quarter Finals (except that Tenerife is in Spain). It was Town-esque as they went 1-0 down, equalised and then scored an extra time winner though.

I've stated before that the 2022 official GTFC calendar has not aged well. The second half of the year features David Longe-Gone for July, then an autumn of Max Wright, Ben Fox and James McKeown. I typed 'of this quartet, only Ben Fox is set to play league football this season', referring to his imminent return to BP with Northampton, only to then hear about Max Wright's recent move to our League Two rivals Harrogate. 

A busy hour last night saw a Twitter announcement, a Wright debut goal, and his substitution after half an hour, presumably injured.  Good luck Max. By the way, we go to Harrogate on Boxing Day and they visit BP on Saturday, 21 January.  No news as yet on McKeown or Erico Sousa, but otherwise, our released players seem to have found themselves new employment. 

Last night Hull's manager told Radio Humberside they had a query about loaning Andy Smith from one of the clubs that had previously loaned him.  He's only had two loans, so surely GTFC have enquired rather than his other previous borrowers Salford, right? And surely he'd choose us anyway even if both were interested. Watch this space.  

Also last night a fringe Mariners side were defeated 1-0 at Chris Bolder's North Ferriby side, who featured a couple of ex-Clee Town players, plus Tom Corner too.  The GTFC XI comprised of a mix of familiar and less familiar names; Battersby, Cropper, Markham, Goundry, Zerboni, Milner, Braithwaite, Khouri, Wearne, Tomlinson, Essel. Subs: Dennis (GK), Thorpe, Hodgson, Brown and Coke. (Credit to North Ferriby's twitter account for sharing the team sheet.)

I've seen nine of those play for Town but many of them only briefly in the dying moments of the McKeown testimonial this time last year. Perhaps the time is now for an official site introduction to the next batch of youngsters, those in the year group after Essel, Tomlinson, Bramwell and Braithwaite?  

UTM