Ryan Manning and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad22 Oct 2029
Words at Grimsby Town training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lewie Coyle is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
27 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Grimsby Town lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Grimsby Town can pretend not to have heard.
Two goals and a mark of 8.36 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.95 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Successful dribbles: 22. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Grimsby Town this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Grimsby Town are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Rodrigo Samarra will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Grimsby Town the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jamal Jimoh-Aloba was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Four paragraphs on the club website, none of them about football. The board thanked him, wished him well, and had the search under way before the page went up.
The terraces20 Aug 2029
The mood at Grimsby Town has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Grimsby Town can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Grimsby Town people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 31 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“Somebody has to pick the team on Saturday, and this week that is me.” An interim appointment with no promises attached, which is how most of them start.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Grimsby Town have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Amara Nallo had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Grimsby Town they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Grimsby Town will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Grimsby Town, and it is not being withdrawn.
Lewie Coyle and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
The mood at Grimsby Town has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Grimsby Town have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Grimsby Town can pretend not to have heard.
The offer from Inter Turku for Amara Nallo was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Grimsby Town will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
At 22 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Grimsby Town can pretend not to have heard.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Deportivo Lara waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Grimsby Town is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Grimsby Town will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Grimsby Town have done the hard part with Bradford City, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Ryan Manning and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Grimsby Town are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
At 23 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Cheltenham Town waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Grimsby Town is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Grimsby Town can pretend not to have heard.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Grimsby Town will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Federico Ortiz and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The name of Géza Dávid Turi has come up in conversations Grimsby Town were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Grimsby Town have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Grimsby Town, and it is not being withdrawn.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 93 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The deal with Oxford United is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Grimsby Town this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Grimsby Town have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 102 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Grimsby Town, and it is not being withdrawn.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The name of Amara Nallo has come up in conversations Grimsby Town were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Grimsby Town can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Grimsby Town have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Successful dribbles: 21. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Position 24 and 26 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
The terraces28 May 2029
Supporters organise against the Grimsby Town board
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Grimsby Town, and it is not being withdrawn.
Ryan Manning was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Lewie Coyle was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Grimsby Town can pretend not to have heard.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 27 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
100 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 15 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Successful dribbles: 14. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The dugout14 May 2029
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Michael Parker was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Grimsby Town dressing room was either.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Grimsby Town, and it is not being withdrawn.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.76 for the rest of it.
Ryan Manning and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad9 Apr 2029
Lewie Coyle falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Michael Parker after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Zak Gilsenan is on it.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Ryan Manning was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Grimsby Town are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The goal that put Swansea City ahead was still being replayed on the concourse when Grimsby Town equalised, 3 minutes later. Leads are only worth what you do with them.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Grimsby Town pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
At 2 goals adrift this was a formality, and the formality lasted right up until it did not. Grimsby Town found something the first half had given no notice of, and Exeter City could not hold what they had.
Two goals and a mark of 8.23 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Grimsby Town this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Successful dribbles: 21. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Grimsby Town they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Grimsby Town this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad26 Feb 2029
Lewie Coyle falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Two sides from the bottom of the table, three points, and an afternoon that will be described afterwards as a relegation decider by whoever loses it.
The dugout26 Feb 2029
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑2 Michael Parker left the room before anybody could ask which.
Nobody at Grimsby Town will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
11 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Trae Briscoe will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Grimsby Town the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Grimsby Town this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Lewie Coyle and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 16 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
The dugout18 Dec 2028
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Michael Parker chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
Successful dribbles: 13. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
25 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Grimsby Town lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Grimsby Town is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Nobody at Grimsby Town will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
23 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Grimsby Town lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Grimsby Town will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 9 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Out, 0‑6 to West Ham United, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Grimsby Town, and it is not being withdrawn.
The words a physio says slowly. 55 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Grimsby Town will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Grimsby Town, and it is not being withdrawn.
The words a physio says slowly. 110 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Ludogorets had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Grimsby Town and West Ham United have settled on $9.1M. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Grimsby Town will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Grimsby Town, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer from Mansfield Town for Nico Valentine was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
At 21 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
$1.3M was the most the club would pay and Bristol City were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
125 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Grimsby Town lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Maldini Kacurri is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Ryan Manning was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad31 Jul 2028
Lewie Coyle falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Sam Lavelle trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Ryan Boot has written the date down.
The offer went to Sunderland this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Grimsby Town this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Lewie Coyle was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Manchester City keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Lewie Coyle was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
At 21 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Grimsby Town asked and LOSC Lille said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Grimsby Town has been clear about where Charles Vernam stands, which is more than many ever get.
Signed today, seen by nobody for years, and one of them may one day be the reason the club exists. That is the whole of the argument for an academy, and it is a good one.
In brief
SquadA place in the month's best eleven for Amara Nallo
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
5 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Grimsby Town can tell you which week it ends in.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Grimsby Town, and 0 appearances in 46 say he has earned the hearing.
The dugout22 May 2028
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Michael Parker to a room that had heard them before.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager has not finished forgetting Jamie Newton's mistake
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 49 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Player ratings10 Apr 2028
Samba Konaté, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 7.70
A mark of 7.70 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
He is 19, he is averaging 7.13, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
Lewie Coyle was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Grimsby Town can pretend not to have heard.
Ryan Manning and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad6 Mar 2028
Lewie Coyle falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad6 Mar 2028
A place in the month's best eleven for Amara Nallo
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Amara Nallo has come out of that comparison in the side, and Grimsby Town have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout6 Mar 2028
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Michael Parker was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Grimsby Town dressing room was either.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager has not finished forgetting Jamie Newton's mistake
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Two goals and a mark of 8.42 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Grimsby Town can pretend not to have heard.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Finlay Cartwright is living that version at Grimsby Town, and it tends to show in the first month.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.35 for the rest of it.
Boardroom7 Feb 2028
Grimsby Town close the window on a squad of their own making
6 in and 5 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
The chase for Federico Ortiz ended with $1.1M changing hands and Leyton Orient out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Lewie Coyle and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Everything agreed with Leyton Orient, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Grimsby Town had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Burton Albion, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Ryan Manning and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad31 Jan 2028
Words at Grimsby Town training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lewie Coyle is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Millwall have kept their man, and Grimsby Town go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and Grimsby Town know which stage they are at.