Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Thursday 25 September 2003

25 September 2003

Town are back on the trial trail as their reserves hit the north for a meeting with Newcastle's at Whitley Bay. Somebody called Robby Greetham is named in the squad given on Town's official site for this afternoon's game; we don't know where he's from or where he plays but the Diary is going to take a guess from his position in the list that Mr Greetham specialises in duties of a defensive nature. Come to think of it, we don't know what happened to Barton Town striker Bobby Lewsham either, after he failed to get on the pitch as the reserves trounced Sheffield United last week in the cup; although having seen three different spellings for his name the Diary suspects that the club sent him back up the estuary after deciding he was more trouble than he was worth.

Time was, of course, when Newcastle had no reserve team - an oversight that denied match practice to Alan Pouton during his early career with the Magpies. These days, though, the "battling midfielder" (it means he gets sent off too often) is kept out of action not by the madness of Kevin Keegan but the dodgyness of his knees - but it don't mean he ain't never comin' back, says Paul Groves. The Town boss is fed up of all these puffed-up no-lives "my sources at the club say blah blah blah" on messageboards - I'm paraphrasing - who have been gleefully foretelling the end of Pouton's career as we know it for some weeks now. "These are the kind of rumours that can damage players' careers," says our Paul. "This rumour is totally unfounded, and Alan has done everything that the specialist has told him to do." So there.

Speaking of Mr Groves, he isn't the only manager in northern Lincolnshire who gets barracked for taking a player off by his own fans when they don't know the player's medical situation. Far from it. His shorter-tempered counterpart Mr Laws has found himself similarly lambasted of late, specifically as his Scunthorpe side exited the Carling Cup t'other night and he subbed off top striker Steve McLean, whose leg had been encased all week in ice. "I wish they'd wait and leave it until the end before they start to make their points of view," says the Laws to BBC Humber, "or at least get the facts right first." When Scunny finally come to their senses and give Bri the heave-ho, a career surely awaits as Groves' PR executive.

Meanwhile, an update arrives from the fevered mind of Mr Alistair Wilkinson. "At CRAMP headquarters underneath McDonalds, the science boys have been working overtime. General Tom, the overall commander of CRAMP, is delighted to learn that the Hypno Ray is nearing completion. Doctor Fluffy assures him that it is a matter of weeks till the whole world will want a GTFC cat. General Tom moves through the underground tunnels toward the training facility, located under the sea front. From Wonderland to the leisure centre, thousands of cats are being readied for their new homes. He surveys the sea of fur and smiles to himself: 'Soon the whole world will be black and white.' He moved away purring satisfactorily." You don't think this would be better expressed in an epic narrative poem, Al?