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Diary - Wednesday 20 June 2007

20 June 2007

After GTFC waved farewells of varying regret to Rob Jones and Steve Mildenhall this time last year, Terrell Forbes and Jason Crowe 12 months earlier, and Mike Edwards, Phil Jevons and Stuart Campbell back in 2004, the summer of 2007 is notable as the first for several years in which the Mariners have not lost any of the players they wanted to hang on to (unless you count the loss to injury of Luton's Michael Reddy). This is despite persistent rumours linking midfield linchpin Paul Bolland with a switch to his hometown club Bradford City, who will line up alongside the Mariners in the fourth division next season. Since moving to Blundell Park from Notts County two years ago, Bolly has had such a blast in Cleethorpes that early last season he signed a new contract extended to 2009, and is quoted in today's Grimsby Telegraph "laughing off" the talk of a switch to West Yorkshire, where he moved back recently "for family reasons". "Just because I live in the area again, it doesn't mean anything," the player explains to the local paper - great news for Town fans, which could be improved only by downloadable footage of Bolland literally laughing off the rumours, ideally in the actual faces of the people who started them off on the internet. Interspersed with images of Ken Bates having his fingernails painfully removed whole.

With nobody leaving and nobody coming in, the Telegraph is otherwise as desperate for a story as the Diary has been all week, and while the Riby Square Thunderer runs a so-what filler story about former Town loanee Iffy Onuora returning to Gillingham, the Diary's looser remit and non-commercial editorial imperatives allow me to discuss matters of even less immediate relevance to the fortunes of the Mariners - such as why my central heating/hot water boiler isn't working properly. "Can't help you with the boiler," writes Martyn Wyburn in an email to the Diary, "but I changed my bath taps last weekend without flooding the house (quite an achievement for me!). I know this is no help to you whatsoever but you did ask people to share their skills!"

Thanks, Martyn - and well done! Paul Wright, who says he is "almost a plumber, albeit lacking the practical skills necessary for such a title" suggests hard water and limescale may be to blame, while Séan Carr suspects that "dust and dirt around the vents" may be extinguishing the pilot light. The wiring in Ed Fleet's boiler was shorted out by rainwater blown into it during last week's heavy rain, but it can't be that because my boiler's been playing up for about a month; and John Stephenson reckons it's the printed circuit board, "which is the most expensive item to replace - not much change out of £300". The PCB is fairly new, as it goes: we had to replace that quite recently. It's not a Potterton, no - it's a Europa 24 combi (which a quick Googling suggests is "the cheapest of the cheap"). I twiddled something yesterday and there's plenty of water coming out now, but the flashing red light (which I don't think is telling us about the pilot when it's flashing) still came on once, so it isn't always hot. Mrs Diary reckons we should just give up and splash out a couple of grand on a Worcester. I keep telling her the only way we could afford that is to run advertising on the Diary.

But that just wouldn't be right, would it? You can still help Cod Almighty, though, readers, by visiting FreetheFixtures.com. As the Diary has reminded you recently, Town's fixture list, and those of all other Football League clubs and the Premiership, are, quite absurdly, copyrighted, and the copyright is owned by a company called Football DataCo, which has been going round threatening non-profit-making fan sites and zines with legal action just for telling other fans when and where their team is going to be playing football. FreetheFixtures.com is running a petition to protest this ridiculous and indefensible state of affairs, so if you appreciate the free, top-quality, no-advertising coverage you get from Cod Almighty, hit the site and sign up. Thanks.