Cod Almighty | Diary
GOAL FOR GRIMSBY TOWN!!
11 May 2023
The Mariners made 17 signings in what is already being called ‘last season’. I haven’t had the time to work out how that split across summer and January, but it seems quite a high number considering we were adding to a promotion squad rather than starting from scratch — which is what we did in 2021-22 when we signed or loaned a total of 27 players.
In fact, since Paul Hurst returned to Blundell Park at the start of 2021, he’s made 55 signings. An eye-watering 24 of them have been loans, while another 10 were short-term deals handed to uncontracted players mid-season. We all know what misshapen state the club was left in when 1878 Partners took over two years ago, and perhaps these numbers were always necessary for us to recover.
There are those who made significant contributions, such as John McAtee, Ryan Taylor, Ben Fox, Jordan Cropper and Jordan Maguire-Drew, and there are those who made little to no impression, such as Julien Lamy, Jamie Pardington, Joel Grant, Joe Bunney and Aribim Pepple. Some signings came with a bit of fanfare and a carefully edited highlights reel on YouTube, while those that didn’t came with the hope that they were the sort of clever, under-the-radar signing that Pádraig Amond turned out to be.
Most of our signings, however, left without fanfare or further footage to add to their highlights reel. Joe Adams, Joey Jones, David Longe-King, Ryan Sears and Owen Gallacher were all signed for good reason, you presume. Similarly, there must have been some intelligence behind the loan signings of Mikey O’Neill, Thomas Dickson-Peters and Keyendrah Simmonds.
Don’t let data-led things like xG or Brentford fool you into thinking football recruitment is an exact science. It isn’t. Neither is VAR, clearly. At the root of data and science is humanity. These are people, and people are volatile. Some reach their potential, others don’t. Signings are almost impossible to get right.
We have 14 players under contract for next season, which is a foundation that is much more solid than previous years. The good work, and a view to greater stability, is starting to filter through, perhaps. But another 8-10 players will join us this summer, and it’s very likely that 6-8 of them will make no lasting impression.
Your West Yorkshire Diary finds all of this extremely exhausting and doesn’t envy for one minute those involved in football recruitment. I need a break from all the rumours and transfer gossip, the constant search for one-upmanship or character defamation on message boards. It’s tiring.
Already there are 30 pages of transfer speculation on The Fishy, and the season only finished three days ago. In all our rumour and hearsay, it’s worth remembering there are families behind the footballers that we speak of as commodities, or numbers, or (worse) ‘bodies’. It’s dehumanising language that has arisen in tandem with this fascination of and investment in data.
These players now live on glorified spreadsheets. Something like this once made a cracking computer game, which always aimed to get as close to the real thing as possible. Who knew that within a couple of decades, the real thing would actually move the other way and become more like a computer game?
When there’s little to no news coming out from the club, fans will fill the spaces. What used to be a natter over the garden wall, or a quick chat in the playground after dropping off the kids, now exist as protracted and tedious exchanges on social platforms, uncapped by any sense of time.
As yesterday’s Daubney Diary remarked, the players nor the fans have had a proper break in nearly two years. I’m ready for my break now, and I’m sure the players are too. No rest for Paul Hurst and his team, though, as their movements in the transfer market will be picked apart and analysed to death. But I’m happy enough to simply leave them to it — not that we have any other choice, of course.
I'll be back in two weeks, when I'll no doubt contradict all of the above by finding something to talk about. UTM!