Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Wednesday 15 October 2008
15 October 2008
In the early 1990s, when Martin Butler was a young striker breaking into the team at Walsall, his role models would presumably have included the likes of Les Ferdinand, Chris Sutton and Robbie Fowler. In 2008 he has looked more likely to follow in the footsteps of Capability Brown, Percy Thrower and Charlie Dimmock, as his time at Grimsby Town has been largely given over to gardening leave. All that is history now, however, as the player and the club have reached an agreement to cancel his contract, ending an unfortunate but not exactly catastrophic episode in GTFC history and hopefully freeing up some quiddies for Mike Newell to bring in a footballer who might actually fancy playing a bit of football now and again. "I don't think I'd have had any more joy than the last manager had with that situation," said Newell. In hindsight, of course, it seems that the increasing desperation of Lord Alan Buckley's search for a striker last season blinded him to the impractical commuting distance between Blundell Park and the player's home in Worcester - but when Butler managed a few games towards the end of last season he seemed to have justified the manager's faith with half a dozen goals and some genuinely intelligent and threatening forward play. It's just a shame, really, and nothing more than that - although Butler's begonias will surely have been glad for the attention.
Subscribers to Mariners World, Town's paid-for web service, have probably long given up on ever seeing anything genuinely revealing or interesting in return for their £35 a year, and today's interview with Liam Trotter is unlikely to restore their hopes. Is the Diary being just a little harsh? Well, it was a shame Town couldn't hang on for the win against Wycombe, apparently; Trotter is enjoying playing first-team football; and the players are a nice bunch of lads. This weekend's game at Exeter will be the last of the player's current one-month loan from Ipswich Town, and "if both clubs are happy for me to stay here, then I'm more than happy to stay". It seems to the Diary that if Trotter could only release the ball more readily then he could make a really telling contribution to the Mariners' attacking play, but on the plus side, he seems quite a well-spoken young man, and is possibly the only member of the squad who looks fit enough to play at his best for 90 minutes, so the Diary would be quite happy to see him stay for those reasons alone.
"Town chairman John Fenty agrees that, apart from Saturday, the atmosphere at Blundell Park has been lacking in recent weeks," says Town's superb new official website. Town chairman John Fenty is correct. But having improved the atmosphere at Blundell Park by appointing Mike Newell, GTFC are now taking the entirely redundant measure of trying for the 38th time to persuade some attention junkie in the Pontoon to spend an hour and a half whacking seven shades out of a great big fuck-off drum instead of watching the football. "The drum is coming back and we are looking for someone to bang it for us," warns the SNOS, using the first picture that comes up in a Google images search for 'drum'. Rumour has it, furthermore, that Blundell Park chiefs have already taken the dreaded step of playing music over the PA system when Town score a goal but, given the miserly total in the 'goals for' column this season, nobody has actually noticed it yet.