Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Wednesday 24 May 2006

24 May 2006

As you will no doubt be aware by now, the Mariners' star striker Gary Jones has had the red card he received against Lincoln last Tuesday overturned, quashed, torn up and generally rescinded by the FA's appeals panel, freeing him to play in this Sunday's monstrously significant play-off final against Cheltenham. With the heroic Lump back in the fold, the Robins being yet to record a first ever victory against Town, and Sladey's giants having won both previous encounters between the sides this season by an aggregate score of four goals to nil, there can only now be one possible outcome from the match, can't there.

Just as important as who's going to be stepping out onto the legendary Cardiff turf, which is steeped in literally five years of footballing tradition, is the question of who's going to be watching. Have you got your ticket yet? "Because we are not able to guarantee postal orders after today, we are no longer accepting online or telephone orders," announces Town's official website. Earlier on today, the OS said it would stop selling tickets online at 2pm, and the time now is 12:34pm, so that's a bit of a turnaround really. Well, not a turnaround - more a sort of comedy walk like those Olympic fast walking people do when they, um, do their fast walking. Er... and I don't think the OS even mentioned stopping phone sales earlier on, but I can't quite remember. Sorry. This paragraph is going nowhere fast. Unlike the fast walkers.

So just how many will Town take down the A180, then the M180, M18, M1, A42, M42, M5, M50, A40, A449, M4 and A48? The Grimsby Telegraph has just reported that Town's ticket sales are about to "crash through the 10,000 barrier", but with 25,000 having been issued to Blundell Park and the club having taken more than 30,000 to the Football League Trophy final against Bournemouth in 1998, the barrier is not so much being crashed as apologetically leaned on by a limping septuagenarian with a shopping trolley full of tripe and self-raising flour. Don't say I didn't warn you about the prices. What's that? The bars at the Millennium Stadium don't sell bitter, and the lager costs three quid a pint? Shush! Everyone will end up staying in Grimsby and watching it down the pub! Oh.