Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Thursday 3 April 2003
3 April 2003
"The players which the manager wants are being spoken too at the present time in the order of, what he sees as priorities in order that they can be assured of their future which is within the context of what the club can afford." That's the latest string of gibberish from BBC Humber Sport, the website that is rapidly becoming to the English language what Bobby Cumming was to the other team's ankles. The quote is attributed to Peter Furneaux, and skilled readers can just about make out from the context of its appearance that the Town chairman has given the go-ahead to Paul Groves to open talks with some of the club's 900 nearly-out-of-contract players. The Diary trusts that the names of John McDermott and Georges Santos will be first on the list of appointments.
The new peace agreement between GTFC and the Grimsby Telegraph comes under immediate pressure as the local paper for local people reports, in an odd kinda way, that 1,000 tickets for this weekend's game at Leicester will be available at the ground on the day, while the club announces that Leicester have remembered we don't have any fans and can't be arsed to open the kiosks. Embedded journalists are reporting from the GTFC regiments that the Foxes defence will be shocked and awed by Steve Livingstone, let in 12 goals in the first five minutes, and then surrender.
Whispers reach the Diary that the latest half-decent young 'un to make the premature step-up from reserve team duty to first team action could be Graham Hockless, who did his cause no harm at all by netting both goals in the second string's 2-0 win over Hull yesterday afternoon. The player's claim for a place at the Stadium of Fried Potato Snacks this weekend is strengthened still further by the happy coincidence of his being a midfielder - the area in which the Mariners find themselves particularly light just now - and one observer informs me, furthermore, that Hockless is comparable in stature to Mrs Diary, who towers at a perfectly formed 4'11". As Dave Boylen, Joe Waters and Dave Gilbert all demonstrated gloriously, small is beautiful where the Town midfield is concerned.
Next, the latest moves in the global capitalist conspiracy to destroy small football clubs. The likes of Grimsby are under renewed attack from two angles this week: on one side, the European Commission, which is seeking to trump all the wonderful things it has already done for football by outlawing the system whereby TV rights are sold collectively on a league-by-league basis and the cash is shared out among the clubs. The Commission wants clubs to sell broadcast permissions individually instead, meaning the biggest clubs get even bigger and the smallest are ground into the dirt. Isn't it lovely how free trade is making the world a better place for everyone.
At the same time the big clubs want even more Grimbarians to watch them on the telly instead of going to see Town and are seeking to overturn the regulation that prevents their matches being televised at three o'clock on Saturday afternoons. The demand has come from Peter Kenyon, chairman of tedious overachievers Manchester United, who last year showed his love of English football by calling for half of its clubs to be thrown out of the professional game. "Anyone with a wider perspective and the best interests of the whole game at heart would have to realise that the Saturday afternoon blackout is sacrosanct," pointed out Football League spokesman John Nagle. "Is that an iceberg ahead? But they said this crate was unsinkable!" MUFC TM ® announced half-year profits this week of £31.1 million.
Finally, some of you may have seen it already, but Cod Almighty now boasts a relaunched poetry section following the prosodic extravaganza that was Diary Poetry Week. Those would-be laureates who sent us verse after the week was over will now find it lovingly rendered there. Have a read, and if Town's plight moves you to metre then let us have a gander - by either emailing the Diary or pasting your shit into the CA feedback form. Fare thee well.