Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Tuesday 17 December 2002

17 December 2002

Former Mariners loan defender Zhang 'The Man' Enhua is back at the club today, announces the official website - but without adding whether he is in talks about a transfer or has just popped in to pick up a jumper he forgot to take home with him. Pretty weird, huh? Enhua - who featured in China's squad for this year's World Cup - was quite good, but not 12-grand-a-week good, and his continued selection in the 2000-01 season by then 'manager' Lennie Lawrence eventually led to the club losing one of its finest defenders ever when Peter Handyside, who Enhua kept on the bench, sodded off to Stoke.

Aston Villa's Michael Boulding returns to training today and is targeting Town's Boxing Day clash with Derby for his return to the club where he made his name. That's Grimsby, not Sheffield United. The fleet-footed forward has been laid up with an ankle injury for several weeks but hopes to see a loan deal in place by Christmas. "I can't see it taking a massive amount of time," says Boulding to the Grimsby Telegraph. "My fitness is pretty good anyway so I hope it won't be too long."

Steve Livingstone, Jason Gavin, Stacy Coldicott and Simon Ford are all in casualty, apparently, and the Telegraph is having kittens about Town going into a series of fixtures that could decide our first division destiny with eight first-team players unavailable. The Diary shrugs its shoulders in resignation and phones up the club to get a ticket for the Sheffield Wednesday match.

It'll be panic in the sponsors' lounge on 28 December when they're asked to name the man of the match, as erratic midfielder Alan Pouton will miss the game against Norwich that day following his sending off in Town's abominable non-performance at Preston last weekend. The player received a second yellow card for dissent after the award of a free kick to the Lilywhites following a girly slapping incident, and will serve a one-match suspension.

FIFA's random idea generator software may have solved Sven-Goran Eriksson's left-side-of-midfield problem with today's suggestion that the geography of all member nations should correspond with their membership of the United Nations - meaning England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland would be forced to play as a single United Kingdom team. Are you listening, Giggsy?