Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Wednesday 19 April 2006

19 April 2006

Town fans travelling to Macclesfield for the final away game of the season will have to buy some of those pesky ticket things before they set off. That's the logistical prognosis cast by our chums at the Grimsby Telegraph, which explains that the Cheshire club has sent 1,500 standing tickets over to Blundell Park and nearly 400 for seats. The probably must-win match takes place on 29 April, and the news that it has been declared all-ticket was not made clear by the Mariners' official website, unless it's hidden away at the bottom of some other page somewhere about a winger arriving on trial from Mangotsfield United.

Speaking of which, two more hopefuls will be arriving at BP dressed to impress during the days ahead. Shrewsbury goalkeeper Lance Cronin has made exactly one league appearance thus far in the 20 years of his existence on this planet - which makes it all the more surprising that the Diary has actually heard of him - while failed Tranmere trialist Royce Brownlie brings with him not just a funny name but some sort of Australian league record for scoring eight times in four games half a decade ago. Good luck, Royce. It all sounds a bit Mickael Antoine-Curier, but we won't hold that against you. Now let us never speak that name again.

All this trialist talk reminds us that it's time for Town's hapless reserves to take another shot at recording their first win of the season - and, this afternoon's visit to Hartlepool being their final game of the 2005-06 campaign, it will also be their final shot. Recent trialists Michael Vickers (striker, Nottingham Forest) and Andy Bagnall (goalkeeper, Birmingham City; cricketer, Grimsby Town) will feature in the second XI's starting line-up reports the official site, finding another new and innovative way to cock things up by making some HTML tags appear in the browser window.

As Mariners hero Sir John McDermott approaches the end of what will probably not be his final season after all, Diary reader Richard Bedwell has emailed to draw our attention to a rather natty stat. A page on the mighty and anorakular allfootballers.com lists the players who have made more than 500 league appearances for single clubs, where the rightly revered right-back drops in at number 15 - "well ahead of Scunthorpe's 'best'," points out Bedders, referring to 18th-placed Jack Brownsword, who notched up a puny 597 outings for the Iron in the 1950s and 60s. Our reader goes on to note that Mickael Antoine-Curier "in 2003-04 became the first player ever to appear for six League clubs in the same season (Oldham Athletic, Kidderminster Harriers, Rochdale, Sheffield Wednesday, Notts County and Grimsby Town)." Thankyou. Now let us never speak that name again.