The Captain's back in the East Marsh

The Captain is back, after a combination of copious amounts of beer and a few weeks at sea! It looks like most of my neighbours have been moved out of the flats - hope they don't demolish them after I've had a night on the booze. There's been a lot happening since I've been away; the Mariners having signed what appear to look like some decent players and then having a good pre-season, so far; the Labour leadership battle in full swing with Jeremy Corbyn appearing to be in the lead; and England having a good day on the opening day in the third ashes test.

There seems to be a lot of genuine optimism around Grimsby Town FC, after some interesting signings to back up the majority of good players who re-signed after the play-off defeat. It was disappointing to lose Lenell John-Lewis and Carl Magnay - good luck to them both, but they might well live to regret their decisions by the end of the season. Omar Bogle, apart from having the best name in football, looks an excellent prospect, and poaching Andy Monkhouse from Bristol Rovers was a definite up yours to Darrell Clarke! I hope you have all recovered from the pain and heartache of Wembley and are full of optimism for the season ahead. It's the hope that gets me every time - at my age you'd have thought I'd have learnt by now! However, after our all conquering pre-season (nearly), excellent purchases, and operation promotion (£110K), what could go wrong!!!

After Labour's general election defeat, and Ed Miliband's attempt to introduce 'austerity-light' instead of the Tories nasty vengeful dismantling of the public sector and attacks on the poor, we are now faced with a choice - Jeremy Corbyn; Andy Burnham; Yvette Cooper; or Liz Kendall? There now appears to be an anti-austerity surge (at last) within the labour movement towards Jeremy Corbyn, which reflects what is going on in the rest of Europe, with Alexis Tsipras and Syria in Greece, and the rise of Podemos in Spain. I would rather have a Labour party led by Jeremy Corbyn than the one led by Tony Blair who was only interested in his own bank balance! I will therefore be voting for Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader.

As for the cricket, by the time you are reading this, who knows who will be winning!

Captain Haddock