Cod Almighty | Diary

I'm bealing but it's happy tears.

6 September 2022

Trentside Diary: I'm sure I can't be the only person who is spending an inordinate amount of time scrolling for positive stories about Grimsby Town and the wider football world. I know, I know a positive story is an anathema for some football fans. I'll be in danger of being a happy clapper again won't I? Even the hardest hearted of you can't have failed to take joy from the result at the weekend, surely? It's difficult to reconcile where we are now with where we were at the end of the 2020-21 season. Let me immerse myself in all that positivity.

In a world, or more precisely a country where everything seems to be going to shit at the moment how lucky we are that we can focus on our club. Our club that is in the most positive state it has been for most of this millennium. Let's take the joys where we can. I loved last Saturday because it felt like the first game this season that we really started on the front foot. We have options in the squad now and you can see the lads upping their game to get that coveted start. Lovely stuff.

There are a few concerns that players like Jordan Maguire-Drew will get frustrated and want to be off if they are not getting regular game time. It's a tough one. Every club needs a squad and that means that some will get played less regularly than they would like. It's not like decades ago when you had a main team and a handful on the periphery to fill in for injuries. It's for Hursty to manage and hopefully for the players to show what they can do. If only the Pizza Paint Trophy wasn't such an abomination, I'd happily go along to support the team and it would give the youngsters and those on the edge of the team a proper chance to shine in front of the fans. In its current format I wouldn't go, even if we got to the final. Saddens me to say it but we each have to draw our lines somewhere.

I'm sure most of you will have seen the story about Jay Stansfield, the Fulham player loaned to Exeter City for this season. Was there ever a better story that encapsulates the emotions and relationships in football than this? Most of us aren't gifted enough to pull on boots professionally but many of us share our love of our club with family and friends. That story was for everyone who has been to games with dad, grandad, mum, partner, sibling and now carries that love onwards. I'm not ashamed to say I blubbed, or more accurately bealed my eyes out when I read it. How he went on to play a game of football I don't know because I was in bits. Football, it’s our wider family.

Talking of which, happy birthday to Oliver H, six years old and a season ticket holder in the Main Stand. Have a good one Oliver.

UTM.