Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Thursday 3 March 2005
3 March 2005
Only two or three years ago Town fans used to get all het up when the likes of Mark McGhee and Trevor Francis said they expected their teams to go to "places like Grimsby" and win. The arrogant swine! And now Town fans get all het up because they expect their own team to go to places like Rochdale and win. It's all about expectation management. If a couple of first-team players are going to be nursing injuries for three weeks, then it's quite bad; but if you originally expected them to be out for six weeks then it is surely time for smiles and raised glasses all round! So, hurrah: for Michael Reddy and Jason Crowe, says the Grimsby Telegraph, may be playing association football again by the end of the month. Hurrah!
In the meantime, as the Diary pondered yesterday, Reddy's position at the cutting edge of the Grimsby Town goal machine may be taken up by 21-year-old David Soames, who at Rochdale on Tuesday made his 21st substitute appearance for the Mariners and his first since last April. And young Digger, as he appears to have been nicknamed for reasons that are in no way clear, did his cause no harm at all by tucking in the consolation goal in a 2-1 defeat for the reserves at Darlington yesterday - in a side featuring several unfamiliar names with which we'll surely be getting a whole lot more familiar over the months and years ahead, oh yes.
"Wheel-Ossett" doesn't mean anything at all, so the Diary wishes he could have stayed at Barrow, but if Kirk Wheeler will insist on making career decisions that are based on football rather than wordplay then I suppose that's his prerogative. Accordingly, the former Town reserve has, reports the Non-League Daily, joined Ossett Town of the Northern League Premier Division, where he spent some time on loan earlier this season before being released by the Mariners on account, presumably, of not being good enough. It's a cruel game.
Mat Hare isn't another former Town youngster who has just signed for a non-League side but, as we saw here yesterday, Matthew Oswin is; and Mat, it seems, has got nothing better to do than type Oswin's name into search boxes on websites. "He left Town on 1 June 2000 according to Soccerbase," writes Mat. "He then wentÂ… err, home I guess because he doesn't appear on Soccerbase's radar after that point. It appears that he went to Spalding for a while as well as doing some real work. He also got a Year 12 distinction from the Burnside school and has his own memorial trust to support research on Huntingdon's Disease." Gosh, thanks. I'll sleep soundly in my bed tonight; or I would if the heating boiler hadn't just sprung a leak. Anyway, there must be an article in that, I reckon.
That's me done for the week, then. I'm on a Baker day tomorrow, so you'll have a supply Diary. Stay on your best behaviour, children.