The Diary

Cod Almighty | Diary

The water in Majorca don't taste like what it oughta

19 June 2014

Is it really ten years since the curious disappearance of the Jarvis employee who set up his company's ill-fated sponsorship of Grimsby Town Football Club? So it would seem. We may never know the full story of the Jarvis thing – which is a shame, because it would probably be quite fun – but we do know that Young's has stuck around a while longer. The local seafood producer, of course, stepped in when embarrassed Jarvis bosses struck a deal to get out. And a decade down the line it's still coming back for more. Well done!

It remains the case, however, that the football club named for a town once known as the world's premier fishing port, and still strongly associated with the fishing industry by a huge majority of the public, fails to provide fish and chips to supporters on match days. It is unclear whether Young's will do the right thing and use its position to help end this disgrace once and for all.

Your original/regular Diary remembers a curious silence from the Grimsby Telegraph on the premature end of the Jarvis deal. A new generation of reporters at Riby Square seems, thankfully, less wary of asking the wrong questions. The Telewag will do little to boost its reputation, however, with a story about last season's Grimsby Reaper victim Dave 'Forest Green Rovers' Hockaday becoming the new manager of Leeds. That's not a story, folks, sorry. It's a tweet.

Where there is a story, however, is in Leeds fans' calm and measured reactions to the news, which are in no way informed by, oh, I don't know, a brazen sense of entitlement or anything like that, and very much keeping a sense of perspective about the whole thing.

 

Oh. Come to think of it, it sounds a lot like us Town fans whenever the Mariners appoint an assistant manager, doesn't it, eh? Still, check out the #lufc hashtag on Twitter for ongoing Hockafun all afternoon. Like Australia's defence, it's the gift that keeps on giving.

One of the things you have to admire about the Football Conference is that it knows its limits. Fully professional leagues give a date when their fixtures will be released. The Conference just gives an optimistic shrug. The big fish of the Football League already know who they'll be playing next season and when. The Conference has been saying it aims to publish its fixtures "by" 7 July. Not on 7 July. Or 18 June. By 7 July. Yeah, we'll do it in a bit. Whatever, Mum.

Now we have confirmation, though. The fixtures will come out on 7 July. We don't know whose fixtures they'll be, because Salisbury. But there you are. I blame the Premier League. Which reminds me – the Mariners Trust wants your opinions about League 3. Yes, a bit tucked-away, perhaps? How do you want us to say no to it, the Trust? Email? Twitter? Carrier pigeon? Be a love and set up a web form, would you?

And finally today, it's nice to know you can get something built in North East Lincs, isn't it? Up the bleedin' Three Lions.