Cod Almighty | Diary
Smash 'em in the compound
10 September 2019
The women's football season kicked off at the weekend and Town got off to a flyer, recording a 4-2 win in their first ever competitive game. Appleby Frodingham were the visitors at Oasis Academy, and the honours for first goalscorer went to Sophie Bartup, with Ellie Wilson netting twice in the second half and Alisha Dejonge completing the scoring at the end of the game. It feels like a bit of a moment, doesn't it? I wonder how the Lincolnshire County Women's League feeds in to the pyramid and where this new adventure might lead.
Town's newly superb new official website has acquitted itself well, providing a lengthy interview with manager Dale Houlston and photo gallery from the match. GTWFC fixtures can be found on the league's website, and we're hoping to set something similar up here at CA very soon. We're also looking at how we can expand our coverage to include more on the Mariners women – so if you’re interested in helping out with match reports or any other GTWFC-related content then please give us a shout.
The men face Macclesfield tonight in that rearranged League Cup fixture with, of course, a trip to Stamford Bridge on offer for the winners. It's a shame that Chelsea have become an emblem for the oligarchic conquest of top-flight football in the 21st century, because their long-ish history is more interesting than that.
Even as recently as the 1990s, shortly before they became another desktop toy for another fossil fuel billionaire, the likes of Gullitt and Zola made them quite a sexy, trailblazing club. Probably like most Grimbarians who are Of A Certain Age, though, when your original/regular Diary thinks of Chelsea I think of the early 1980s when they were in the second division alongside the Mariners and we used to play each other regularly in league games, more or less as equals. Most significantly of all, they used to have a player called John Bumstead, which was endlessly hilarious when you were swapping Panini stickers in the playground.
What else? I think I saw somewhere that Michael Jolley and James Hanson are up for monthly awards, which, you know, don't change the world or anything much at all but are kind of nice and that. I'm no expert – on anything at all, really – so let's see what the League Two League Analyst for Football Radar has to say about MJ's prospects for manager of the month.
An even more difficult choice for @SkyBetLeagueTwo Manager of the Month.
— Edward Walker (@FRfootballEd) September 10, 2019
David Artell of #CreweAlex
Michael Jolley of #GTFC
Michael Flynn of #NCAFC
Matt Taylor of #ECFC
For me, it would have to go to the Manager who’s currently got his team top, Matt Taylor.#EFL #MOTM
So there you go. It's a difficult choice, but probably the manager of the team who are top of the league. I'd find that very tricky to disagree with, if I'm honest, and I'm sure you would too.
Town's youth team appear to have drawn 1-1 at Chesterfield last Saturday, but I don't know who played or scored because I can only find a report on Chesterfield's website, and they only talk about the Chesterfield players, in that way that websites do when they're not reporting on the first team. Speaking of Chesterfield, did you see their first team are propping up the Conference Premier with no wins from their first ten matches? Blimey. You're supposed to start turning it around in your second season down there, Chesterfield!
Finally today, Stevenage Football Club made the news in 2017 when women visiting their stadium to support Grimsby Town reported that they were forced by stewards during security searches to lift their tops and show their bras. Stevenage Football Club have now appointed as caretaker manager Mark Sampson, who was sacked as manager of England women in 2017 after the FA found evidence of "inappropriate and unacceptable" behaviour with players in his previous role at Bristol City Women.