Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Wednesday 15 April 2009

15 April 2009

After a strong-looking reserve side was beaten last week by plucky little Scunthorpe, Town have gone for the obvious remedy of sending a weak-looking reserve side to take on Hartlepool this afternoon. Since the Diary read through the line-up on the club's superb new official website earlier today, however, the name of youth team goalkeeper Leigh Overton has at least been replaced by that of first-team standby Jonathan Lund. Anything else of interest? "The Mariners will give another run out to former Crystal Palace defender Ryan Hall," the SNOS drops in casually, like we all knew perfectly well that the former Bromley and Crawley Town midfielder of that name who turned out for the stiffs' last defeat against Hartlepool in March had also played at the back for Crystal Palace. Maybe finding that out is what persuaded Town to give him another go, eh. Either way, Hall's biographer on Wikipedia seems unimpressed, going by the playing position given for him there.

Le Tigre, Paul Bolland, The Stone Roses. All experienced severe second album trouble, with Bolland never quite having reproduced consistently the outstanding displays of his first season with the Mariners in 2005-06 and the others having, um, released second albums that were nowhere near as good as their first. Bolland's chances of a return to form this season were, of course, sadly zeroed out by the terrible knee injury he suffered last summer but an interview in today's Grimsby Telewag finds the Yorkshire-born midfielder in fine fettle on the road to recovery. It's nice to see, too, that Mr Re-Newell has said Bolland, who is out of contract this summer, will get a chance to prove himself worthy of a new deal and do a Belle & Sebastian by emerging stronger than ever from various spells in the wilderness. The Life Pursuit was a bloody awful album, mind.

"Just a thought on T-shirt designs I had after reading the Diary the other day," reads an email to the Diary from Sibbo. "What about 'Another Conlon moment' or 'Play safe and use a Conlon'?" We're looking into it, Sibbo, although going by the current inability of the CA team to get anything done in less than a geological timescale and Bazza's propensity to fall out with his managers, any Conlon T-shirt we produce may end up having to be marketed to the 37th club of his career.

Sibbo's mate Dave the Engineer has some happy reflections from Monday. "I had the pleasure of attending the match with Tom, a work colleague who is a County supporter. We dropped his two children off at his mum's on the way (she prepared us some lovely sandwiches and home made sponge cake) and then we met up with his dad for a pint in the Magpie club. We sat next to a big moron who knew nothing about football and Tom suggested moving because he said he felt like hitting him, never mind about what I felt. We moved to the back row about three rows away from the net between us and the Town fans. I wouldnt want to pay £20 every week but the away win was priceless, as indeed were the sandwiches. Up the Mariners and thanks Tom's mum." Tom's mum could do worse than bid for a catering outlet at Blundell Park next season, from the sounds of it.

Lastly today, Alan Dickens (aka 'Exiled in Essex') has emailed about the Meadow Lane seating shenanigans: "The stewarding was poor... Town fans seemed to be milling about all over the place and there didn't appear to be any stewarding going on - only the usual glowering from them and the Fuzz from the perimeter track," but he adds: "The Town singing was brilliant and to have 2,000 of us there deserved the win - shame us fans weren't as vociferous last Saturday - I sat in the Main Stand for the first time in my 50 years of Barrett/Frozen Beer patronage cos there was a mix-up on the ticket front and it was all very quiet - different at Notts - Town should have a 'Jesus' in every stand to organise the singing or a bouncing-ball screen with the words on. By the way, what's your take on the Pilks-handball-out-of-the-area shenanigans?" Well, Alan, Akpa Akpro's challenge on Pilkington certainly didn't look like a foul to me, but that is largely because I didn't see it.