Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Wednesday 6 June 2007

6 June 2007

Hi guys! Durham Diary here, dragging himself out of bed and a semi-permanent post-exam drunken stupor to confuse and abuse you with a mix of nonsensical sentences and contradictions of terms. 'Semi-permanent' being the first of the latter; let's keep a count.

So the Mariners have all but signed Gary Montgomery, a keeper who wasn't kept by non-local rivals Rotherham after their recent relegation. I don't know anything about him, so let's make a two-footed hop to an email from a contact of a friend of a contact of an occasional diarist:

"Hmm, Monty is something of an enigma. Suffered by having to follow on from Mike Pollitt - our best keeper in years by some distance. Don't think any of our keepers are really helped by the crowd getting on their back as soon as something goes wrong. It rather shattered his confidence and I don't think he ever really recovered from it. It may well be better for him having a fresh start at your place. I don't think he had any confidence in the defence nor they in him. Plus we were forever chopping and changing keepers after each of them made a clanger. He's fairly woeful at coming off his line (but I suspect that may be lower division keepers all over) or commanding his area. Good shot stopper though."

Sound familiar anyone? If Monty comes here expecting patience, reasonable fans and support through periods of bad form he'll get a shock playing in front of the Pontoon I suspect. Monty hails from the coastal part of Leamington Spa, and made 33 starts for the Millers as well as 8 for Coventry, where he was a trainee. Gazza will start the season as our second number one, but will look to push current incumbent Phil Barnes as he establishes himself. Which brings me round to wondering when the last time was Town had two genuine contenders to play between the metal sticks. Answers on a postcard along with your full name, National Insurance number and credit card details to the following address...

Talking of players released by Rotherham, which I was before cleverly confusing myself, Michael Keane is also looking for a new club. Keane, who hails from the sober part of Dublin, scored twice in seven loan appearances for the Mariners at the end of the 2003 relegation season before making me laugh and getting into trouble by making gestures to travelling Brighton fans on the final day of the season to the effect that they might in fact be joining us in playing lower-division football the next season. Lower-division football: that's probably the subtlest of the contradictions of terms so far.

It appears I'm not the only one drawing out old news to make up for the lack of new news. The OS is offering subscribers "ANOTHER chance to see the farewell interview with John McDermott", and when they put the capitals in for you, you know there's not much left to say. McDermott, who is almost unanimously regarded as the club's greatest ever playing servant, recently sold his soul to the devil by applying for the vacant Boston manager's job, which I'd genuinely hate him to get, if only because it meant I'd want Boston to be successful.

And that's all we have time for today, folks. Tune in on Friday when someone else will provide your third daily update since last Friday. I'm going for a nice quiet glass of orange juice and get my head round the concept of 'almost unanimously'. See you all soon, and good luck to England for tonight.