Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Monday 6 February 2006

6 February 2006

Following his tour of duty in the African Cup of Nations, Jean-Paul Kamudimba Kalala Kamudimba - well, you've got to cover all bases - has headed home, meaning that he is reporting back to Cleethorpes, England for club affairs rather than that he has scored a tremendous goal using his bonce. JPKKK's national team, the Republic Democratic Republic of Congo, exited the tournament on Friday at the quarter-final stage with a 4-1 defeat at the hands of host nation Egypt, and in an unpleasant parallel of his current situation at Blundell Park poor old Jean-Paul didn't manage to get off the bench the whole time he was out there. The DR Congo squad came close to pulling out of some Cup of Nations fixtures following a row over bonus payments, which were eventually guaranteed by the country's president Joseph Kabila, and comprise $10,000 for qualifying for the competition plus a further $15,000 for progressing from the group stage. This would represent handsome compensation for JPKKK's inconvenience - assuming, of course, that unused substitutes are entitled to receive it.

Martin Gritton, who physically left GTFC in January, at least six months after the departure of his motivation, inevitably scored on his debut for his new club at the weekend. It took 62 minutes for the first goal to be registered in Lincoln's 3-2 win at Stockport and the party responsible was the former languid Town forward, who at one point was supposed to be going to forge the best frontline partnership in the division with Michael Reddy. The Mariners visit Sincil Bank on 25 March, by which time Gritts' attention span will hopefully have expired again. Another recent departure, Simon Ramsden, debuted for his new side on Saturday, when Rochdale claimed a 1-1 draw at Oxford. "Maybe my style of getting the ball down and playing out of defence didn't suit the way the side was playing," Ramsden told the Grimsby Telegraph last week about his inability to command a place at Blundell Park. Didn't players used to come to Town and say that about their last club?

After Town's youth team seemed to have fought bravely but been knocked out of cup competitions about seven times back in the autumn, the Diary has been walking round for the last few months under the impression that the young 'uns were now, as the football parlance has it, concentrating on the league. Not so, it would appear, as the Mariners' motley band of asbo-dodging teens are to face their counterparts from Cheltenham this very evening, down at Whaddon Road, in a semi-final of the Midland Youth Cup. Town's official website goes into unusual detail by giving forenames and surnames for the entire squad, which reveals the existence of sufficient fashionable parents in the Grimsby area for a player to be called Josh.

Does anyone know how Rob Jones and Justin Whittle are doing?