Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Wednesday 20 October 2004

20 October 2004

Blame it on Mr Russell Slade's decision to drop Thomas Pinault, or blame it on the continuing inability of his front three to secure sexual gratification even in a house of ill repute: the fact is that Town have again failed to take three points from a match they should have won easily, and disgruntled Mariners supporters who made it to Shrewsbury last night are muttering darkly of a performance as bad as the home defeat against Rochdale in September. After his first goal for GTFC gave the side an early lead, Terry Fleming seemed to regress to his wild youth at half time, being lucky to emerge with only a booking after a bit of post-whistle handbaggery. Anthony Williams saved a dodgy pen for the home side but fluffed an innocuous long-range free kick late in the match to make it 1-1, and it might be six league games unbeaten for the Mariners (the first time this has happened since January 2000, reveals the official website's increasingly excellent post-match stats thingy) but any more of the rubbish served up in the last two games could spell the end for Slade's honeymoon period as Town manager.

Chester's Deva Stadium may come to resemble a china shop this Saturday as an injury to Jason Crowe towards the end of last night's sorry proceedings could see Ronnie Bull thrust into first-team action. The youngish left-back featured for the Mariners early this season but has since been kept out of the side by the excellent form of John McDermott and the, er, well, something to do with Crowe. And there's not much else I can say about that, really.

In other Town defender news, though, don't expect Terrell Forbes to be at Blundell Park in 2005; not unless he is both acquitted at his forthcoming trial on charges of rape and becomes so attached to GTFC that he just keeps hanging out there despite not being a player any more. Which of these two scenarios is the more likely to come to pass, I will leave you to decide. The Diary, you see, has heard from a friend of a friend of my cousin's budgie who met one of Forbes' former QPR teammates at a gig, who suggested that the player will be off to pastures newer and greener should he not be incarcerated following proceedings at the Old Bailey on 15 November. Which will at least solve Mr Russell Slade's problem of who to drop when Simon Ramsden can come out and play again.

Oh, and loads of people are buying tickets for the Scunny game in a week or two's time. Which is the correct thing to do if you want to go, with it being all-ticket and everything.

The Diary wondered whether we would ever hear from Pat Bell again after his recent elevation to the Observer letters page, but happily it seems that he's still humble and grounded enough to drop me an email when I bugger something up. "Neil Woods Scottish?" writes Pat. "I always thought he was born in York - the few hits I got on Google suggest as much as well. However, a Diary entry did come fourth in Google's list of results for my search, which must say something about your status on the web." Wahey! And under current FIFA eligibility guidelines Woods would probably qualify to turn out for the chilly jockos on account of having once listened to some of a Proclaimers album.