Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Tuesday 14 March 2006

14 March 2006

It snows, you shovel it away, you play football. Simple, right? Not in some areas of Lancashire, where Rochdale Football Club's increasingly futile efforts to stage a game of football have foundered once again. Ground staff have shovelled away two thick coverings of snow, but the appalling mudbath they call Spotland is once again too sodden to play anything approaching the game we all know as association togger, and after the formalities of a 1pm pitch inspection tonight's (re)scheduled match between Dale and the Mariners has, as expected, been (re)postponed. The cancellation denies Town the chance to go top of the fourth division, and Rochdale chiefs are understood to be considering giving up on football altogether in favour of fielding a side in the Boddingtons North-West Counties Bog Snorkelling Premiership.

Have you got painful memories of the bizarre shenanigans that surrounded admission to the cup game against Newcastle earlier this season? Do you wake up in the night, clammy with sweat, traumatised by nightmares of voucher systems, deadlines, Town's official website saying one thing, the ticket office saying another, and queues halfway down Grimsby Road? And have you been wondering about getting a ticket for Lincoln away? If your answer to all of these questions is yes, the Diary is just going to tell you gently about a communiqué on the OS dealing with the Mariners' forthcoming visit to Sincil Bank, and step away quietly while your expression glazes over and the voices in your head resume their instructions to kill.

So it's a wet playtime and we need something to do. What a good job, then, that you lovely people have sent loads of email to the Diary's funky new temporary email address! And not only that but a funky new temporary email address-warming e-card from Michael Shelton with a picture of a snowy owl on it! Owls are ace. "Welcome to your new home!" he writes (Michael, not the snowy owl). Thank you. I don't know how long I'll be staying, but thank you. Perhaps when the builders have finished and I've moved back to diary@codalmighty.com, one of you would like to rent out ca.diary@googlemail.com for the summer?

I have nothing witty, interesting or controversial to say (insert your own gag here)," begins Mark Wilson's email, which continues: "but was moved to send you a note by your plaintive plea yesterday. Just because you don't get email it doesn't mean that people have stopped loving you, in a platonic and manly way." Thank you very much, Mark, although the Diary lost the capacity to feel love on 8 May 2004. Andy Lumbard, meanwhile, has emailed in response to the Diary's recent assertion of Tony Butcher's intellectual property rights over the name 'Jones the Lump'. "If it's all right with you," he says, "I will have Lumpaldinho (2005 copyright A Lumbard) - can't do one of those C in a circle things." You mean one of these? ©©©©©©©©©©©

Next up, Felix Oliver-Tasker asks: "Is this the truth or an urban myth? A man is driving through the Nunny. It is late, cold and wet. He sees a figure standing in the shell of a vandalised bus shelter and, being a good Samaritan, stops and offers him a lift into town. The man is extremely grateful and gets into the car. The driver asks him what he was doing on such an awful night. He answers that he was working. The driver asks what his job is. His cold, wet passenger answers: 'I'm a Jehovah's Bystander.' 'Don't you mean Witness?' says the driver. 'No,' his passenger replies, 'there's no witnesses on the Nunny.' True or false? Up the Mariners."

Last of all, veteran of the Postbag (God rest its soul) Ian Jackson has re-sent a story he recently put through the feedback form in the hope of CA's recently deceased letters page making like Lazarus. "A recent Diary had talk of 'Exeter hitting the post in 1991'," he writes (Ian, not Lazarus), "and it set my mind back to that day in May, nearly 15 years ago. Which then set me remembering the World Cup of 1998." Turns out that Mr J bumped into the ref of Town's promotion clincher against the Grecians at the England/Columbia game in Lens. "I had chance to ask about Cockers' 'offside goal' and the pitch invasion. His replies? If I remember correctly, he gave the goal, even though he had doubts, because there was no flag from the linesman and he stopped the game early at the point where he was closest to the tunnel so he could get the hell out of there! I might need to check the video to see if he was being honest with me." Thanks for that, Ian - great story. The Diary accepts no responsibility for any pitch invasion that may occur if Town are one-nil up against Northampton on the final day of this season with several minutes left to play.