Cod Almighty | Diary

Football sunshine awaits

16 August 2024

There's something wonderfully familiar about the opening day at Blundell Park. Leaden skies and North Sea winds are the norm around here and so a game under a blue sky should feel alien to us, the long sufferers of east coast exposure who seem to live in a perpetual winter, who exist as a stanza in an often forgotten but much-admired wintry poem. For so much of our collective memory Blundell Park exists in the bleak mid-winter.

Yet, the opening day, the warmth, the smiles, the hope, the fans' wide smiles, bare arms and lobster faces, the players in shining new strips, resplendent in the sunshine, the green, green grass beneath that blue sky, the light greys of the steps clean and clear, hard slates on which to write the stories of the new season, the dormant floodlights, waiting for the winter, the League Cup a warm-up for the serious business of dark Saturdays that will threaten our Christmases, but for now sentinels of our early aspirations, witnesses to dreams and desires not yet dashed.

When Blundell Park is an August bowl of sunshine it makes us feel like we're not yet ourselves, as if our day , our year, gets to re-start on the pavements of Grimsby Road and we can be a different person, a better person, one who can accept the good things that life can offer, one who can feel the warmth from the sun and from this community that meets every other week with one shared goal. It feels right. It feels real. It feels like home at its best.

Your A46 Diary is very excited for tomorrow. I'm ignoring the fears of the bookies' pre-season favourites coming to ruin our day, ignoring the talk of Rose's scan and the inevitable discussions of worst possible outcomes, ignoring the blunt attacking play of the opening game against Fleetwood, ignoring all things leaden, and focusing on the glorious twenty minutes before kick-off tomorrow.

And after the twenty minutes? Wilson will continue to deputise for Rose. No bad thing. Wilson plays higher that Rose, meaning we usually have some kind of presence in or near the box, and he gives more room for our exciting new midfield to operate. Memories of Wilson are mostly him running onto a ball but he can play the hold-up role well too. Tuesday night was a great example of his all round play, the goal superb as was his ability to bring advancing midfielders into the game. We ask a lot of our solo striker: run the channels, hold the line, score the goals, make the goals, come back on set pieces, be ready to receive the clearances from the set pieces.

It's these extreme demands that call into question (yet again, sorry) the decision to release Orsi given how he seemed to thrive on hard work. Wilson, however, is up to the task. He won't be the all-action, hustle-bustle Rose, but he will be effective in the things he tries to do if our other attacking players don't leave him too isolated. He cut a lonely figure at Fleetwood, so let's get the team higher up the pitch, keep Wilson at the heart of things and enjoy our (possibly-once-a-year) sunshine football.

Up the Mariners!