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Diary - Tuesday 7 February 2006

7 February 2006

Violent central defender Fen Butcher looks likely to join Rob Jones and Justin Whittle on the central defensive sidelines for this weekend's visit to his old club Boston United, thanks to a gentlemen's agreement between Russell Slade and his Pilgrims counterpart Steve Evans. Evans claims that Russ promised not to play Butcher in the fixture when the player moved to Blundell Park from York Street last month, and with Town's official website having obliged the Diary by explaining that neither Whittle nor Jones are likely to play this weekend, it looks like a choice between re-signing Matt Bloomer, re-signing Simon Ramsden, and fielding a fourth, fifth or sixth choice centre-half pairing involving Glen Downey, Tom Newey, Tony Gallimore or Graham Rodger. "I have known Russell Slade for many years and one of his greatest traits is his honesty, so therefore we should have no worries about [Fen] playing against us on Saturday," said Evans, who is himself widely recognised as a glorious paragon of integrity and truthfulness. Meanwhile the Pontoon stand is to receive a masterclass in creating a deafening roar of noise from a visiting delegation of Trappist monks.

Bobby Lewsam. In February 2005 he was a big Town fan, aged 27, who lived on Hainton Avenue and played amateur football with Market Deeping. Then he was given a trial by the club of his dreams, played a couple of times for the Mariners' reserves, and in February 2006, at the climax of a fairytale rags-to-rags story, he's still playing amateur football with Deeping but is described by the Peterborough Evening Telegraph as their "latest signing Bobby Lewsam from Grimsby Town". Did Town give him a contract without telling anyone, just so he could appear as a sub in a reserve cup semi-final against Manchester United? You may have lives to live, but the Diary wants to know.

Speaking of the Peterborough Evening Telegraph, as we were just a moment ago, its latest match report on the local fourth division team also finds reason to mention GTFC. Regretting the state of the pitch in Peterborough's 1-0 win over Cheltenham last weekend, the local paper noted: "Posh really should have tried to sell their surface in the transfer window to Lincoln or Grimsby. Teams successful with kick-and-run football are far more suited to mudheaps than passing outfits." That's Grimsby Town Football Club, which as recently ago as the late 1990s was admired throughout the English game as a little club holding out in the second flight, Crewe-style, while also playing consistently attractive passing football, but is now cited as similar in style to a side managed by Keith Alexander. Depressed? I am - and so was Simon Ramsden.

Let us look to the future, then, and hope for brighter things from the Mariners' youth team, who last night reached the final of the Midlands Floodlit Cup final - I knew there'd have to be a 'floodlit' in there somewhere - with a 2-1 win at Cheltenham. The WKD-downing stars of tomorrow will face Walsall or Hednesford Town in the final of the tournament after Peter Bore, ahem, drilled home a late winner from close range. Today's bonus question: when was Grimsby moved to the midlands?

All of that exertion at Whaddon Road, besides taking a GTFC team to the final of a tournament for the first time since 2003's triumphant Copa Ibiza campaign, also means there's a good excuse for this afternoon, when most of the youth team will presumably also feature in the reserve side that loses at Doncaster. Ta-ta 'til tomorrer.