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Diary - Friday 30 January 2009

30 January 2009

As cold news teams find out which place does the best bacon sarnies and the cheapest tea on the south bank of the Humber, your Guest Diarist can exclusively report that 'injured' Town full-backs Tom Newey and Robbie Stockdale have not joined the unofficial picket in solidarity. The reason is that they are both training on Cheapside with a view to resuming their careers as professional footballers. Memo to self: this opening para doesn't work: replace. Oh bugger - it'll have to do.

So the rather enormous Town squad is just about all available to manager Re-Newell. M. Akpa Akpro will gingerly test his hamstrings having left it as late as possible for all to decide if he is fit to play. Young lothario Peter Bore must feel pretty good about the words Newell spoke of him to Mariners World and the Telegraph. Newell is quite happy to recognise the Bore potential, but delicately points out the need for consistency from the fervent young heterosexual.

The lack of substitutes used the other night demonstrates how strongly the manager feels about his best eleven and one assumes that he is trying his darndest to extend the loans of his new top performers. Someone told me that Joe Widdowson has said he is "in Grimsby until May" on his Facebook page but as I am not (yet) his 'friend' I can't confirm that one way or the other. Later: now I can as the OS confirms Widdowson here for the rest of the season and Sinclair until at least 9 March. Hurray!

The club is having another 'fans' forum' on Friday 20 February and, guess what, Humberside is broadcasting it. Is the cold war thawing? Has Humberside decided to jump on a resurgent Town bandwagon (hey - three games unbeaten buys a wagon in my book!)? Or has Fenty been made to feel the tiniest bit illogical by a couple of deadpan questions from his new manager? Or maybe supporters' trust chairperson Mr Otter has brokered the peace (about as likely as Blair doing similar in the Arab world)?

I think you can get 7/2 about Town getting a point tomorrow and that is just about as daring as any sane man should be, I think. But take a look at our factfile and see what the tipster recommends.

It will be a big crowd tomorrow with several hundred noisy Town fans being baited by those nasty Bradford people. Try to be one of them, eh? See yer.