Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Thursday 20 September 2012

20 September 2012

Shush! What's that sound? Oh, it's Anthony Elding on the phone to his agent again. Two new players for Luton? No - two new players for Grimsby! To yesterday's loan of Scott Neilson from Creepy Crawley has been added the temporary acquisition of Ross Hannah from fourth division Bradford City - a prolific non-League striker Town were 'linked with' before he joined the Bantams last summer.

Both players have arrived on three-month loans, keeping them at Blundell Park until around Christmas. Neilson adds much-needed width to the attack after the failure of Louis Soares to live up to his pre-season promise. Hannah attracted attention with a spectacularly prolific spell - we're talking Hearn at Alfreton, people - at Matlock Town before his move to Bradford. While he hasn't torn up trees at Valley Parade, a loan to Halifax back in the spring showed he hadn't lost it (seven goals in 11 games, it says on Wikipedia).

Your original/regular Diary is now even more annoyed about tomorrow's game against Luton being switched to, er, tomorrow. No, obviously I can't go.

One pattern that becomes apparent in Shorty and Shouty's signings is that of past success. Neilson was promoted from the Conference Premier with Crawley, Greg Pearson with Burton Albion, Nathan Pond with Fleetwood Town and Sam Hatton with Wimbledon. The theory falls down a bit with Bradford City, but hey.

Matt Pakes is one among you who has a word to say about Town's striker situation. "I was just thinking," he muses in an email sent two weeks ago but which we were too lazy to open before now, "(as one often does when faced with a mountain of work): the current situation with Liam Hearn smells a lot like the Reddy problem. Amazing for one season with a great strike partner (Jones/Elding), injured over the summer, returns for a couple of games, a slight whiff of former glory, then out for many months... I just hope it doesn't have the same, distinctly un-fairytale, ending. Undignified retirement and a club struggling to cope without any direction or goal poachers. God I hope not."

You forgot the bit where Reddy signed for Luton, Matt: perhaps the Fishy messageboard's finest hour, when several members fell for a web hoax and then threatened to report the perpetrator to... um... the internet police, or something, there must be some. No new players for Luton.