Cod Almighty | Article

by Steve Bierley

14 October 2015

Well, more than a third of the season gone and, as my late Lincolnshire-born grandfather used to say: "It's been a rum owd do."

The fevered and largely inexplicable explosion of pre-season optimism seemingly prompted Paul Hurst, a manager of contrary notions, to slide into the football equivalent of Alice in Wonderland and matters became curiouser and curiouser. Toto at right-back; Pearson dropped; Amond dropped.

Now hold on a minute, Paul. What exactly is going on here? In came Matt Robinson then, more bizarrely, Ben Tomlinson. "It's a squad game," Hurst reminded everybody who cared to listen.

Reality began to slip and slide away even further with the manager's convoluted argument that the Mighty Ms, minus Amond and Bogle, were a better side than with them. We gulped. 

Then came Braintree, the sort of match that once prompted William Webb Ellis to pick up the ball, run with it, and invent rugby. I would like to think that it was at this point that John Fenty tapped our manager sharply on the shoulder, avoiding any chip, and in the immortal words of the common man in the Main Stand, whispered menacingly: "Sort it, Hurst."

Suddenly we had Andy Warrington, the goalkeeping coach no less, thrust forward as spokesman and sounding remarkably McMenemy-esque. What was needed were more goals. And, behold, so it happened. Back came Amond and Bogle, back came the goals. A "magnificent seven", trumpeted the Grimsby Telegraph, never a paper to avoid a cliché.

The contention that "we have no divine right to win promotion" is silly and meaningless and should be banned from Cod Almighty

Perhaps, with Hurst bound and gagged in a cupboard, Warrington picked the side and gave the team talk, along with a little pre-match tipple of vodka from Varrington. If Bogle and Amond, especially, had a point to prove then they certainly made it with bells on. This is what everybody, Hurst excepted, knew was the way forward. So onwards and upwards. And yet.

This time last year we had just won the first two in a five-match winning streak which lifted Town into second place. It never got any better. And this is the worry again. Let us not go down the road of "we have no divine right to win promotion"; it is a silly and meaningless contention, and should – like "in Hurst we trust" or "Fenty saved the club" – be banned from Cod Almighty. What Grimsby fans should have is proper expectations.

As Alan Buckley has pointed out, it is reasonable, given our fan base and history, that that these expectations should have been, from the moment we became a non-League club, that we challenged for top spot in the Conference every season until we went up. So far, in more than four seasons under Hurst/Scott and Hurst, we have consistently failed to live up to such expectations. There has never once been a time when we have really looked like challenging for automatic promotion.

Last season, with no outstanding side, we only managed third place. Buckley commented recently on the lack of any obvious progress over the last two years – and it is hard to disagree. Statistics may only tell part of any tale, but our current points total of 29 compares with 27 at this stage last year, 30 the season before, and 30 the season before that. This is not progress.

But here is the hope. The current Conference appears even weaker than last year's. The down side is that although Hurst has an obvious eye for talent, he also distrusts it. His preference is for hard-working journeymen, players in his own mould. In Bogle and Amond he has a striking partnership that could lift us to the top. It is time for the tinkering and tampering to stop. This squad, spearheaded by those two, is good enough to take us up via top place.

The fans will get behind Hurst, if he gets behind his best players. It is Fenty's job to make sure this happens. All talk of play-offs should cease. The only talk should be of the title. That is the expectation.