Cod Almighty | Diary

Will it take a stud?

23 January 2023

Miss Guest Diary writes: Wherever the keyboard warriors might like to lay the blame for the late postponement of Saturday's match against Harrogate, Jason Stockwood is very clear about who was responsible. He explained to Matt Dean that the club had strong doubts on Friday about the game being able to go ahead and asked for a pitch inspection. The referee declined to do the inspection until Saturday at 11am and then, against the advice of the club, delayed his decision a further two hours in the hopes that conditions would improve. As everyone else in North East Lincolnshire already knew, they wouldn't.

Town weren't the only club to suffer a late postponement: Carlisle's game at Bradford and Salford's game at Barrow were also called off at 1pm after the teams and the fans had already travelled. Barrow say they will make a complaint to the EFL as they maintain their pitch was actually playable.

The postponement didn't make much difference to me personally – we had to drive up from Lincoln to collect our tickets for next week's cup game anyway – and we simply substituted feeding the ducks at the boating lake and a visit to my other half's parents for the game. But I feel sure people with families and busy lives would have appreciated the opportunity to make other plans and those with no other reason to travel will have had wasted expense.

It is some comfort to know that Town weren't alone in the experience, and that it was in no way the club's fault. A small silver lining too: the donation of matchday food to the Salvation Army.

If I found myself on a very bumpy plane ride then I would definitely want to be seated next to Chairman Wow. He has such a calm optimistic way of explaining things that I would have no fear of a disaster, and that is the way he makes me feel about Town. He has full confidence in Paul Hurst's ability to find the right players at the right price and manage the squad. He even believes a late run for the play-offs is possible. As he suggests, all these postponements could actually lead to a run of Tuesday/Saturday games which would give us plenty of football to watch and could build up real momentum. Not to mention the extra opportunities for pre-match fish and chips.

It was also reassuring to hear that Town's chair is well aware of the small number of, mostly anonymous, naysayers and pays them no mind; he knows that the majority of fans – and other folk in Grimsby – are fully behind his and Andrew Pettit's vision for the club.

Of course you're all aware that yesterday was Great Grimsby Day, and the local paper helpfully provided a list of 14 reasons to be proud you're from Grimsby. The Mariners didn't even make it into the top ten, and the paper got the date of the club's formation wrong. The rest of the article is worse: no mention of Petwood and Stockits as inspirational locals, or Myenergi or Docks Beers as successful local businesses, and one of the "beauty hotspots" is in Yorkshire! Now here's a feature we ran a few years ago which really gets to the heart of why Grimsby is great. If you'd like to chip in, please feel free to submit your own contribution.

Oh and, yeah, the boating lake, it definitely took a stud. UTM