Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Monday 21 February 2005

21 February 2005

Away with your trialist strikers from Stevenage and Hainton Avenue! It's time for a real signing! Mr Russell Slade and his boss Positive John Fenty may have all but given up on the current season for Grimsby Town FC - after all, there's only so positive you can be without looking silly - but this is the last season in which they'll be able to sign players when they actually need to, and so they might as well make the most of it. Accordingly, the Mariners' official website is trailing transfer activity in terms that are optimistic enough to suggest that you ought to subscribe to the club's text message news service but cautious enough to avoid you bringing action under the Trade Descriptions Act when Russ comes back from the market empty-handed. And any suggestion that the Diary opposes the transfer window system simply because it will deprive me of content for most of the season is as wide of the mark as a 40-yard free kick taken by Alan Pouton in a blindfold.

What does the whipround for Town's Tax Thing have in common with grievous bodily harm inflicted with a fork? I'll tell you: they are both multi-pronged assaults, and the Mariners' financial woes will not be alleviated by share purchases and Rumble Band gigs alone, as the club's official site has revealed that an equally crucial role will also be played by wristbands. They cost two quid, and if you want one then you can pre-order it now to beat the rush and receive one in two weeks' time when they're delivered from the factory. There aren't any photographs of them yet, and so the club is having to woo prospective wristband purchasers with a dazzling piece of marketing copy instead. "Up The Mariners Wristbands (UTM)," it says. Righto. Anything else? "They are Black and will have text UTM on them." Right. Well, ban me from Blundell Park and call me Mr Negative, but I think I'll wait for the photo.

As for the weekend, well, an away draw against a side that looks odds-on for automatic promotion is never a bad result - the contrast with Town's recent home form perhaps offering a message to the "what a load of rubbish" vocalists of the Pontoon - and it can be no coincidence that the Mariners' first clean sheet since 1978 coincided with the return to the team of Justin Whittle. Fresh from interviewing John Fenty last week, Paul Thundercliffe made it to the Vetch, and "managed to fit in the game around the Mumbles Mile and serious drinking games in Swansea on Saturday night. Took a load of non-Town fans. Luckily, the big Welsh fan who was a cross between Harry Secombe and Barry White (Barry Secombe?) ensured laughter whilst the shit game passed us by. His singing retorts were by far the most entertaining thing on offer. 'Bottom half? It's where we belong. Bottom half? It's where we belong.'" And there I was trying to see the cup as half full.

Ooh yeah - nearly forgot - they're doing two free kids again, against Chester tomorrow night. This may or may not be because the visitors will be bringing along a petulant brat of their own.