A trip to Grimsby Town is something I look forward to every year, not because of the game but because of the day. There's nothing like walking along Cleethorpes seafront and killing a load of zombies in House of the Dead 3.

Our performances there aren't often as fun unfortunately as City have struggled to get results there in 3 of the last 4 games we've played there. Losing there twice in the 2005/6 season followed on from one of the best away games that we've experienced in recent years as we beat the Mariners 4-2.

In charge of Grimsby is Alan Buckley, the man who managed the Imps between March 2001 and April 2002. He despises the long ball game and tries to get his sides to play "total-football". Unfortunately, it didn't work at City but he has impressed so far in his third spell at Grimsby. Last season the Mariners were looking nervously over their shoulders at relegation before Buckley came and improved them to a safe midtable position.

Unfortunately, sides in this division that play decent football don't seem to get promotion. In the last 5 years the only four sides to play decent on-the-ground football to go up were Hartlepool, Swindon, Yeovil and Bournemouth, all the rest have played more long ball than anything else.

Alan Buckley's side are a talented group of individuals but their main problem is that once they get into a run of results then they can't get out of it for a long time. This can be both a good and bad thing as they lost 7 games in a row around the turn of the year before winning 7 out of the next 8 games.

Included in their talented squad is former City player, Ciaran Toner. He was sacked from the club back in the 2004/5 season for a behind the scenes disagreement with Marcus Richardson. From that point on the Imps haven't been the same and if that argument had never happened then the Imps would be preparing for their third season in League One, unfortunately it did and City have never been the same since.

Also included in their squad is Peter Bore, a player described by my Grimsby supporting friend Dave as Grimsby's answer to Lee Frecklington. Gary Jones, just one of two players to score in both legs of a playoff semi final against the Imps also represents the Mariners, the big boned midfielder is capable of scoring a few goals and then acting as a large road block attackers.

An odd thing about Grimsby is that they often get decent results against the higher placed sides but then lose to sides lower down. For example, they beat promoted trio Walsall, Bristol Rovers and Swindon Town, as well as playoff teams Shrewsbury and MK Dons. However, they lost to Macclesfield, Rochdale and Torquay when all were struggling.

Interestingly, Grimsby always seem involved with who gets promoted or makes the playoffs. In 2004/5 they prevented Southend from going up automatically and then the Shrimpers entered the playoffs, the next year the Mariners were denied automatic promotion when they were just a minute away from League One. Grimsby then entered the Playoffs and to this day are the only side to have defeated the Imps in a Playoff game not to have won promotion.

Last season they scored a late, late goal against Shrewsbury, if that hadn't gone in then City would have faced Shrewsbury in the semi finals rather than Bristol Rovers, who would have then travelled to MK Dons.

Grimsby will be hoping that they can again have a shot at promotion but at this point in time I think that is beyond them. Without doubt they have a squad that could potentially challenge, but that old problem of not being able to get out of bad form once they're in it could potentially halt their progress, hence why I'm predicting them for 13th.

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